He fell heavily, on the hard glazed floor of the earth court. I heard the muffled clang of the gold mask striking; and when I grappled him and saw it askew, I knew he was fighting blind. He still had the ax; but now we were in-fighting, and he could not swing it. He shortened his grip and, as we rolled and twisted, beat me with it as one might with any stone. But I hampered his arm, so that it did me no great hurt. And I thought, “Labrys will never fight for him.” She was old, and used to dignity; and once again she had fed upon a king. She would not like to be taken lightly.
And I was right. If he had let her go, and used both hands to wrestle, he would have had a chance; he was twice my weight, and had not labored that day like me. But he was no wrestler, though Cretans are well taught; he could not give up the hope of cracking my head. So as he raised the ax blade, I had time to grab my dagger out of my belt, and drive it home with all the strength left in me. It had a long way to go, through his thick carcass; but it reached his life. He doubled up with a great grunting cry, clasping his midriff. I stood up from him, with the ax in my hand.
A cry went up from the people on the stairs; but more of awe than grief; and a deep hush followed it. Looking up, I saw the Cranes all safe, and the guards already fled away. Before me he lay writhing, scraping the noble mask of the Bull God on the floor; I drew it off, and held it up to the people.
Now I saw his face, grimacing with bared teeth. I stepped up to him, to hear what he would say to me. But he only stared at me as at some shape of chaos, seen in a dream where nothing makes sense. He who had thought to rule without the sacrifice, who had never felt the god’s breath that lifts a man beyond himself, had nothing to take him kinglike to the dark house of Hades. And yet, mixed with the blood and sweat that smeared his breast, I saw the oil that had made him slippery while we grappled. He had been anointed, when we broke in. So after all there was a rite still to do.
I lifted the mask of Minos, and put it on. Through the eyes of thick curved crystal, everything looked little, far and clear; I had to pause awhile, to get the feel of it and judge my distance. Then I swung Labrys back, and brought her down, my head and shoulders and body coming round with the blow. The force of it tingled through my hands; and the voice at my feet was silent.
From the Throne Room above I heard the cry of the Cranes; and from the porch the din of rout, as the news reached the defenders. But I stood still, seeing through the crystal a small bright image, such as a god may see who looks down from the sky, far down and back for a thousand years to men who lived and suffered in ancient days; and in my heart was a long silence.
BOOK FIVE
NAXOS
1
WE SAILED FROM CRETE, at last, in a ship we found in an olive field.
Not only the earth had felt Poseidon’s trident. The ebbing sea, that had grounded the keels at Amnisos, had rushed back with the earthquake. It had broken the mole, and dashed the ships upon it, and flooded the lower town, and killed more people than a war. But a few ships had been carried inshore and stranded softly, like this among the olives. We rolled her down to the water on the trunks of the broken trees.
We mounted guard on her day and night, till the weather let us get away. All Crete was in turmoil. As soon as it was known the House of the Ax had fallen, the native Cretans rose up everywhere, to tear down the strongholds and sack the palaces. Sometimes the lords were killed with all their household; sometimes they fled to the mountains; a few whom their people loved were left in quiet. Rumors came in every hour; and men would send to me, asking me to lead this band or that. To all these I gave the same answer, that I would come back soon. It was not as a freed bull-dancer leading freed slaves to plunder that I meant to reign in Crete. I would come as a king, to Hellenes and Cretans both alike. Now there would be no lack of ships; if I could not get enough in Attica and Troizen and Eleusis, I should have Hellene kings elbowing each other to share the enterprise; more than I wanted, if I was not quick. From this day on, the mainland would rule the Isles. Never again, in any Hellene kingdom, would boys and girls take to the hills at the sight of a Cretan sail.
The bull-dancers who came from the Hellene lands took ship with us, and the Minyans from the Cyclades. Only two girls stayed behind to marry Cretans; men who had loved them from the ringside, and sent them gifts and letters, but never met with them till now. But they were from other teams; even now when our hearts looked homeward, the Cranes were one kindred still.
We had no great trouble to man our ship. Many men had killed old enemies in the rioting, and wanted to get away before the blood-feud caught them up. We built a shelter near the place, and did not let the girls go far alone, even full-armed. It was a lawless time.
When at last the wind was fair and steady, we met on the shore and killed a bull to Poseidon, and poured him libations of honey and oil and wine, thanking him for his favors and praying him to bless our journey. Also we did not forget Peleia, Lady of the Sea. Ariadne made the offering. Her dress was frayed, and her train of priestesses two poor old crones we had found huddled over a fire of sticks. But her beauty still held my breath, as it had from the gilded shrine above the bull ring.
The fires were quenched with wine; the ship ran down the rollers, and lightened as she felt the sea. I picked up the Mistress in my arms and waded through the water, to set her feet on the deck that would bear us home.
Once more I stood in a ship of Crete, looking at the wine-dark restless sea, and seeing the towering yellow cliffs stand with their feet in foam. But Ariadne was weeping for her homeland, and while I talked to her of Attica the last landmarks sank away.
Next day we saw a great smoke ahead of us. Toward evening the pilot said to me, “It is on Kalliste, where we should be tonight. A forest is on fire, or there is war.”
“Of that we have had enough,” I said. “Watch out, and if the town is burning, run for Anaphe.”
We sailed onward, and the smoke hung in the sky like a great cloud black with thunder. As we drew nearer, an ashy dust began to fall on us, darkening all the ship, and our flesh and clothes. Presently the lookout called to the pilot, and I saw them chattering on the beak. Going up there I found their faces pale. The pilot said, “The land itself has changed.”
I looked at the gray landfall; and it was true. My belly crept with awe and fear. I drew into myself, to listen for the god; some dreadful wrath seemed written on the very sky. He sent no warning; but for the black cloud, all was peace. So I said, “Go nearer.”
We came on. A fresh following wind streamed off the smoke to the northward; the late sun shone pale and clear. And then, as we stood in to westward of Kalliste, we saw the dreadful thing that the god had done.
Half of the island was clean gone, sheared off from the hilltops straight down into the sea; and in place of the smoking mountain there was nothing. The god had carried it all away, all that great height of rock and earth and forest, the goat pastures and the olive groves and the orchards and the vineyards, the sheep pens and the houses, gone, all gone; nothing was there but water, a great curved bay below huge sheer cliffs, where wreckage floated; and outside the bay, by itself on a horn of land, a little mound pouring out smoke, all that was left of Hephaistos’ lofty chimney.
The sea around us was strewn with burned branches and dead birds and lumps of half-charred thatch; a thing like a white fish swimming was a woman’s arm, drifting alone. I shuddered, and remembered how the place had made me uneasy on the voyage out. Surely some great impiety must have been done there, a thing to make the gods hide their faces in the midst of heaven. I saw it as it had been last year, all dressed with fruit blossom, as harmless to look at as a smiling child, only for that doomed brightness. We went on quickly, for the sailors would not stay. They reckoned that in such a spot even the sea and air must be charged with the god’s anger, that it would stick to a man and eat the marrow out of his bones. Some of them wanted to sacrifice the ship’s boy to keep Dark-Haired Poseidon from pursuing us. But I said it was clear the god had taken his due, and it was not us he was angry with. So we left that place, and gladly too; the rowers labored faster than the rowing-master gave the stroke, to put it behind them. Sunset came down, such as none of us had ever seen, splendid and awesome, great towering purple clouds in a sky of crimson and green and gold, dyeing all heaven and slow to fade. We took it for a sign that the gods had ceased their anger, and were still our friends. With a little breeze we made Ios by midnight, and sheltered there. Next morning the wind was fair. We steered for the tall shape of Dia, that fertile island whose city they call Naxos.