It is only a two-hour ride, and all that day I looked for him. Though I had given my father no cause for making haste, yet, being young, I ate my heart out with impatience, and no reason for delay was too far-fetched for me to think of. But next day’s noon had passed before the man returned.
On the Lower Terrace was a black basalt seat, between pillars hung with yellow jasmine. Here I went apart, and opened the letter. It was shorter than mine, written in a good clerkly script. He welcomed me to Athens as his guest, touched on my victories, and agreed to undertake my purification.
After a while, I called someone to fetch the courier. I think it was in my mind, as it had been many times with this man or that since I came to Eleusis, to ask him what kind of man the King of Athens was. Yet now as always, there seemed something unworthy in it. So I only asked, as one asks any courier, for the news.
He recited to me various matters, which I forget, and then said, “Everyone is saying the Priestess will soon be Queen.”
I sat up, and said, “How is that?”
“Well, my lord, the curse has lain hard on him. Kinfolk claiming his kingdom, no son by either wife, and the Cretans won’t forgo the tribute for all his asking.” I asked what tribute. “Fourteen bull-dancers, due again next year, my lord. And they only take the cream. The ladies of the shrine say it’s a sign for him.” He paused, as if something stuck in his throat.
“This Priestess,” I said. “She came from Eleusis?”
“She served here, my lord, in the sanctuary. But she came first from some shrine up north, right beyond the Hellespont. They say she has the long sight, and can call the wind; the common folk in Athens call her the Cunning One, or the Scythian Witch. He lay with her before the Goddess a long while back, because of an oracle she had when the kingdom had some misfortune. They say the next thing will be that he must raise her up beside him, and bring the old customs back.” I saw why he had looked askance at me. He went on quickly. “Well, my lord, but you know what Athenians are for talk. More like it’s because of the two sons she’s had by him, he having no heir.”
I stood up from the basalt seat, and said, “You have leave to go.”
He scampered off into cover. I paced up and down the terrace in the yellow autumn sunlight, and saw people who had come to speak with me go away silent. But presently my mind grew cooler. I thought, “I sent the man off too shortly. I ought to reward him rather; a timely warning is divine. As for my father, what right have I to be angry? These eighteen years he has taken no wife, for my mother’s sake and mine. I should have been here sooner, if I had lifted the stone.” The sun was still high, the shadow short before me. I thought, “The man who sleeps on a warning does not deserve one. Why wait till tomorrow? I will go today.”
I went back to the Palace, and called the women to dress me. The red leather suit I had brought from Troizen was Hellene, and nearly new. I slung on the serpent sword of the Erechthids; and, to cover it till the proper time, a short blue cloak pinned on the shoulder, such as one can wear indoors.
I chose two body-servants to wait on me. A guard I thought unfitting to a suppliant; besides, I wanted to make it clear I came in friendship and in trust. Those two would have been all my company; but just as I was going, my captive girl Philona pulled at my cloak in tears, and whispered me that all the women were saying the Queen would kill her as soon as my back was turned. I kissed her, and said Palace gossip was the same everywhere. But she looked at me as the coursed-down hare looks at the spear; and when I thought, I did not trust the Queen entirely. So though it was an inconvenience, I made one of the servants take her up on his mule.
When my horse was brought, I sent the Queen word that I was ready to take leave of her. She sent back that she was sick, and could speak to no one. I had seen her walking on her terrace; however, I had fulfilled the forms.
So I mounted, and in the court the Companions cheered me, but not quite as before; now I was War Leader, I was not so much their own. It would have made me sad at another time; but now I saluted them cheerfully, and soon forgot them, for in my face blew the breeze from the Attic hills.
The road followed the shore, and then swung inward. The autumn grass was parched and pale, the dark oleanders were dusty. At the border guard-tower I had to tell the Athenians who I was; they had not looked for me till morning. I felt my haste had been boyish and raw, and that they would take me lightly.
But they were very civil. As I rode on, one of their couriers posted past me to Athens.
Suddenly, at a turn of the road between the low green hills, I saw standing huge before me a great flat rock, like a platform raised by Titans to assail the gods from. Upon its top, glowing bright in the westering sunlight, stood a royal palace, the columns russet red, the pink-washed walls picked out with white and blue squares. So high it stood against the sky, the guards on the ramparts looked as small as goldsmith’s work, and their spears as fine as wire. I caught my breath. I had guessed at nothing like this.
Before me, down on the plain, the road led to the city wall and the gate-tower. Its roof was manned with javelin-men and archers; on the teeth of the battlements their bullhide shields hung like a frieze. Here no one asked my name. A massive bar dragged through its wards; the tall horse-gate swung open, turning on its stone trackway; within were a guard saluting, the market place, and little houses huddled under the rock, or climbing its foot slopes. The captain of the Guard sent two men at my horse’s head to guide me to the Palace.
Everywhere the cliffs stood sheer, except to westward. Here the road tacked back and forth up the steep slope, flanked for defense with a great curtain-wall. The way was ridged for foothold, but soon grew too steep to ride, and they led my horse. A guardhouse topped the curtain-wall; the men touched their spear shafts to their brows, and passed me through. Far below me I saw streets and walls, the Attic plain stretching to the sea and hills; and on the hilltops the violet hues of evening, like a crown of purple and gold. Before me was the upper gate of the Citadel; the lintel-stone was painted with bands of blue and crimson, and with the royal device, a serpent twined round an olive tree. The late sunlight was like yellow crystal, brilliant and clear.
The place overawed me. Though I had heard tell of it, I had pictured only a hill such as any king or chief will build on. I had not dreamed my father the master of this mighty stronghold. Now I saw why he had held out so long against all his enemies; it might be kept, I thought, against all the world in arms. I understood what I had heard in tales: that since King Zeus made men, there was never a time when a king did not live on the Acropolis of Athens; that even before men were made it had been a fortress of earthborn giants who had four hands, and could run upon them. You can see the great stones they set together, time out of mind.
I passed through the inner gate upon the table of the Citadel. There were the pacing sentries, men now not toys; and before me the Palace, with its terrace looking to the north. If my father had been on it, I thought, he might have seen me on my way. My breath came faster than if I had scaled a mountain, and I wet my dry lips with my tongue.
I passed between the houses of the Palace people, and a few hardy trees, pines and cypresses, planted as windbreaks and for shade. Before the king-column of the great door, a chamberlain stood with the cup of welcome in his hands. After the long ride and the climb, the wine seemed the coolest and best I had ever tasted. As I drained it, I thought at last I had reached the end of my journey; with this draught I became my father’s guest.