The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Tarrik had a strong head, but very much enjoyed getting drunk. He never got to the stage of completely losing control of his body, except at the three great feasts of the year, when, as Chief and Corn King he had led the rest in this, as in everything, and even then it was a drunkenness not even mostly of the wine and corn mead. But an hour or so of fairly steady drinking would just give him the necessary feeling of unreality, of separateness, of being able to stand apart and observe, and be free of mere human emotions.

  And Epigethes found it was doing him all the good in the world; the fear retreated right into the back of his mind, till it was scarcely more than the tiniest black cobweb on the clear mirror of his perceptions. He began to feel again a Hellene among barbarians, amused at their odd habits and manners and clothes. Yellow Bull asked him if he was stiff with riding. He was. He wanted to explain that riding was not truly Hellenic, that it was better to run beautifully and exercise one’s own body rather than a mere brute’s—he sketched a few gestures, of running, disk-throwing, wrestling—a swimmer, even, with one arm raised for a perfect side-stroke … he grew a little mixed in his movements. But Tarrik woke up out of his detachment, brought spirit to body, to speech: ‘You swim?’ ‘But of course,’ said Epigethes loftily to the barbarian. ‘And dive? Wonderful! Our northern rivers are too cold.’

  Epigethes tried to explain, tactfully—oh ever so tactfully, as befits a Hellene—that it was not because of the cold that no one practised swimming here, but because of their ridiculous clothes that muffled them up, kept them pink and modest like women, hid their riding bow legs. He, on the other hand, was proud of his body, would strip and swim and show them. Yes, that was it, they were all admiring him now, rightly and properly, as they should. … And then, somehow or another, there was night air falling coldishly and sanely on his face, damp grass underfoot, and that spider’s web of fear suddenly obscuring the mirror. … When he turned, the house was out of sight, they must have come a long way already. The moon was up, shining on water at each side, sleek mud, willows, flowering water plants. Words began to collect in his head: ‘Is this really the best time?’ spoken quite calmly, with a little laugh—yes, that was better, a little laugh to pass it off. ‘Tomorrow morning, say? Why, I’m half asleep, and I’ll bet you two are the same.’ But somehow they went on.

  ‘My road,’ said Yellow Bull suddenly; all three stopped. They were on a high bank, with a gentle fall on one side to tangled marsh, and on the other a creek, with a small boat moored in it, quite still. They went on a few yards; the bank ended abruptly, crumbled almost under their feet. There was nothing in front but a steep slope of mud, nine feet down, and then black water with only its surface reflecting the moon, just rippled, gurgling faintly as it mouthed its way past the mudbank, eating into it all the time inch by inch. ‘Now you shall dive beautifully,’ said Tarrik, standing on the edge with the moonlight catching the clasps of his coat and belt.

  Epigethes looked backwards once. He could not run away; he did not know the path, and Yellow Bull did. Besides, he was too drunk—or had been—to get the full power out of his legs; it was a hard thing to be a Hellene and know that. And, after all, he had never been such a good runner as he pretended—only, in his head, among all the other shapes, the shape of himself as the athlete. He took his clothes off slowly; the web was matted all over the world now. For a moment he stood, stripped and rather beautiful in the moonshine. ‘Now, dive,’ said the Chief. Epigethes looked from him to Yellow Bull, but the other Scythian was quite impassive, in shadow; he seemed to have no eyes, nothing to appeal to. The first filming of a cloud began to cover the moon, the water looked worse. He gave one great, tearing sob, and dived.

  In the dimming light those two on the bank could hardly see, yet plainly hear, the bubbles coming up out of the mud. But after some ten minutes the cloud passed from the face of the moon, and the water moved clearly below them; it was all as it had been, without Epigethes. Yellow Bull picked up the clothes and belt, and looked across at the Chief. ‘You meant him for my road?’ Tarrik nodded and turned and began walking back; suddenly he stretched his arms and laughed aloud in the night. ‘I was thinking of your sister,’ he said, but Yellow Bull frowned and went on solidly.

  When they came back to the house, Essro was sitting upright at the table with two candles between her and the door. She looked at them coming in, and shivered, and went away. Yellow Bull put the things down on the table; there was a purse fastened to the belt, with two or three drawings and measurements in it, a list of names, and at least a dozen keys, some made very lightly of wire. ‘What were all these for?’ said Yellow Bull. ‘Not all his own, surely!’ ‘No,’ said Tarrik, ‘but we shall find locks for them,’ and he took them and put them into the pockets in his own belt. Then he stirred up the hearth fire and began throwing in the clothes. ‘The brooches—take care!’ said Yellow Bull, trying to pull them out of the stuff; but Tarrik threw them in with the rest. ‘You can rake them out tomorrow,’ he said, ‘they’ll be dead too, then.’ The next morning Tarrik got up and rode off, very early, while Yellow Bull was still dreaming about his road. The other horse stayed on the island; it was not really a very good one.

  Tarrik rode straight north and then a little inland, keeping clear of the town. Sometimes there were crops, but more often pasture, or just rough land with scrub that was no use to anyone. Where the ground rose, there were sometimes a few trees, but all the forest lay right inland, four days’ riding from Marob; wherever there was a river, there would be swamp at each side of it, and he had to go carefully, marking the trackways and fords. As he got further north and east, the land was better, the soil sweeter and dryer. For nearly half a day he rode through the blue flax fields, seeing how well up the plants were, strong stemmed and clean. Sometimes there were tall patches of hemp, and later on that day he came to food crops, rye, barley, and some wheat. All the fields were guarded by children, in case anyone’s beasts strayed. Here, again, everything was looking strong and healthy in the sun; the blades were broad and deep coloured, the ears were big already. As he passed, Tarrik thought of himself as Corn King and was proud of what he and earth and sun had done among them; then he thought of the Spring Queen and the dance they had acted together in the middle of the ring on Plowing Eve; if that was to come real, he felt, so much the better for the corn. He rode slowly, so that all the lands he passed should get something from him, and slept securely at noon in beanfields and did not count the days that went by as he went north towards Harn Der’s land.

  Sometimes there were orchards, fenced in with turf banks; the apples of Marob were in those days the sweetest in the world. In one or two places there were figs and pomegranates, very carefully grown and sheltered from the north. But these were only near farms or camping places, and Tarrik was keeping clear of these, except at night when he took supper and the best bed from the nearest place he saw, once as it happened a small and very dirty farm where he was half eaten by lice, and once the great tent of a landowner come out from Marob for the summer, one of his own counsellors, who had skins of good southern wine with him, and oil for washing, and clean linen. It was later on the same day that he came to Harn Der’s lands, which lay on the two sides of a very flat valley, with a stream going down from pool to pool in the middle and a wood of limes and oaks half-way up one slope. Here Tarrik slept the night, with the food and wine he had taken from the last place, under a lime tree, his saddle for a pillow. Leaning back against it, he could see through the tree trunks to the far slope, and the lights of Harn Der’s camp: the fires like big yellow stars, and at night the great peaked tents glowing faintly and queerly from the lights inside them. He did not sleep very much, partly because of the violent sweetness of the lime flowers, shedding layer on layer of scent about him, partly because he started dreaming of the bubbles in the mud and Epigethes wriggling formlessly like a white slug underneath, but mostly because, after this, to keep himself from seeing it again, he had begun to make pictures of Erif Der over ther
e on the far side: of chasing her and catching her and handling her and playing with her all over, till by morning there was nothing for it but to ride and get her, herself. He cantered down and through a deep pool, splashing himself all over, but not much cooler by the end of it. They were only just stirring in Harn Der’s camp, it was still so early.

  In the half dark of the women’s tent, Erif Der turned over sleepily. It was days since she had thought of Tarrik, but this morning, as soon as she woke, she found he had come into her head. She did not want him there; she sat up and peered about. At the far end of the tent she could see someone moving, her old nurse probably, reknotting the plaits of her sticky grey hair. But Wheat-ear, next her, was still asleep, charmingly curled up with her fists tucked under her chin. Erif Der blinked across at her small sister and called in a whisper; but Wheat-ear did not stir, so it must be little after dawn yet. Somewhere, right above her head in the great hollow dome of the tent, there were some big flies buzzing about, knocking against the sides; she could not see them. Someone slipped out past the curtain, and for a moment there was a breath of cool morning air. Erif Der pulled the blanket over her head and tried to go to sleep again.

  The children had always loved this summer life, riding out, or driving in the big carts, singing and shouting, all in clean, light clothes to match the flowering plain. They had left winter behind; the house that had been getting dirtier and stuffier day after day for eight months, would stand open and be smoked out and scrubbed and painted with bright colours to welcome them again in autumn. They could eat the last of the old stored fruit and honey, be done with salt meat and the hard winter cheeses. Soon the sweet grass would be waving wide ahead of them, there would be fresh things to do and smell and eat and look at; suddenly they felt twice as alive.

  For the first week or two they were always just mad, running about and rolling and playing, riding the colts and splashing in and out of the stream. Then they would settle down to summer. The women would find the best pool for their half-year’s washing, and a smooth slope for drying and bleaching; the men would be hunting, rounding up the young cattle and horses and branding them; Harn Der would ride gravely all about his fields and have long talks with his farm-people; and the two little ones, Gold-fish and Wheat-ear, made themselves a house of branches and took all their food there, and got more and more difficult to chase back to the tents at night.

  Berris Der found that he was apt not to think about making anything for weeks at a time; he flew his hawks and hunted, and raced with the others on half-broken horses, for miles across the plain. Then suddenly, something would come into his head and he would begin drawing frantically, convinced that this was the best he had ever done. He had been like that the day before; now he was still asleep, among a litter of charcoal sticks and odd bits of linen with drawings all over them. He had seen two grass-cocks in their spring plumage, sparring with one another out on the plain; now he was making them into a pattern, with the sweep of their raised neck-feathers to balance the flare-up of their tails and spurs. Bronze, he thought of it; but that must be cast. He had been wondering what Epigethes would make of it—never mind, it was good! When he was back in Marob, he would go on with his lessons; he could, for that matter, ride back easily any time, stay a few days, and work with the Greek. It seemed less attractive now, but still, he could not drop it all till autumn. Epigethes might not be able to stay. Mentally, he cursed Tarrik for that. Here, at least, things would be better when his father’s plan came off: art would come into its own in Marob, and he would be the one to see to it. So he went to sleep, and dreamed of his cocks fighting, and the odd noise their bronze beaks made, clicking together.

  By and bye, when the sun was up and only the shadows very dewy still, Erif Der, who had been half asleep, threw off her blanket and ran out, barefoot, in her linen shift. The servants were all busy, making the fires up again, cooking, bringing in the milk-pails. She sat down in the sun, outside the women’s tent, and began combing her hair; she liked doing this, for it was a comb she had magicked so carefully that it never pulled. When her hair was quite smooth she began plaiting it again, flicking it in and out of her clever fingers, admiring herself. She thought she ought to go on with the weaving of her wedding dress, but decided not to, there was no hurry on a day like this. She stretched herself, dropping the plait, breathing in huge mouthfuls of the sunny air, half thinking of getting Berris to come hunting with her; she loved hunting, much better than making wedding dresses. She began to wish the Red Riders would come again, just a few, so that she could shoot them.

  Then she heard two or three sharp voices, and looking up to find what was the matter, what they were all pointing at, she saw Tarrik riding through the camp on a very beautiful, very nervous horse, that shied, terrified, at the fires and great tents. Tarrik himself was looking very big. She got to her feet, and found that for some reason her heart was thumping violently and painfully; she put both hands over her breast to quiet it. There was a little buzzing in her head and finger-tips. Tarrik came up close to her; she was fascinated by the twitching, jumping body of the horse, the pawing of its hoofs on the dry turf. Quite still herself, she watched intently Tarrik’s hands on the reins, with an acuteness, an accuracy of vision that might have been her brother’s. The grip shifted to the right hand only; Tarrik leant over and picked her up like a rabbit; she felt the linen of her shift tear all along the seam, and screamed. But by that time she was on the horse and Tarrik had loosed the reins; she held on to the mane with both hands, half across its neck, her balance all wrong, with nothing in her mind but the flying ground, the danger. Then Tarrik pulled her up, shifting back in the saddle himself, so that she had a little room, and holding her tight against him.

  They were out of the camp; for a minute or two Erif Der was too dazed to tell which way. All down one side she was sore and bruised; she was being treated as a thing, not a person! Tarrik was saying something; she squared her shoulders and butted her head back sharp against his chin; he squeezed her so hard that she almost cried, not quite, though. She began to work her free hand in under the other that he held so tight against her, under her shift, finger-tips groping for the star. She felt its chain, the pin that fastened it, one point. She was all screwed up to get it, the words she must say were on her tongue; she was as clear headed as possible.

  It pulled up, into her fingers. And then Tarrik caught her hand in his and jerked savagely; the chain bit into her neck, then broke, but she still had the star. His hard, terrible fingers were digging it out of her palm. She bit his other arm, got hers free, and reached back for his face, his eyes, something to go for. He got her tight again, wrist and face, bruising her lips with his arm-bones, and his other hand tore out the star and threw it away. Her teeth closed on saltish linen and skin and muscle, and she threw herself sideways with a kick against the side of the saddle. They hit the ground both together, rolled over half a dozen times. After that, she was almost too done to struggle or fight him any more.

  By and bye Tarrik, beginning to realise how black and blue he was himself, asked her if she was hurt. She shook her head sullenly and sat up. Tarrik, not having, on the whole, had much to do with virgins, did not really know how much hurt she was likely to be, quite apart from falling off a galloping horse. Still, he was not very happy; he did not like her looking grey at the lips. She got to her knees, and began slowly to look at all the tears in her linen shift; it was torn right down the front at one side and she pulled the three-cornered piece up quickly over herself and held the top edges together in her fist. But there was nothing to fasten it with; she let it go to rub her fist across her eyes; after all, it was silly to mind if Tarrik did see her breast now. She didn’t think she could ever mind anything after this—he seemed to have broken all the clean, sharp edges of her feeling for ever. He rolled back his own sleeves to see her teeth marks and a little blood; she had bitten his neck worse, though. The horse had come back, and whinnied to them questioningly from the top of a ridge. She t
ried to stand, but failed altogether; he caught her and stopped her falling; together they looked at her ankle. ‘You must have come down on it,’ he said. She nodded; it was beginning to send shoots of pain up her leg, the under side of her knee, drowning everything else. ‘I’ll get some water,’ said Tarrik. ‘What else?’

  She looked at him. ‘If I had my star,’ she said, and watched him run off down their track, and presently stoop and pick it up.

  He brought it back. ‘You’ll magic me, too?’ he asked, still keeping it tight.

  She held out her hand. ‘Oh, give it me!—Tarrik.’

  ‘But will you?’ She began to cry hard, partly at the check to what she wanted, partly at the softness of his voice—getting at her, trying to stop her hating him and all the violence and pain that was part of him. ‘Will you, Erif dear?’ he said again. ‘I don’t want to be turned into a bear.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, sniffing, ‘it’s too difficult. I haven’t learnt.’

  ‘Well, anything. I don’t want to be magicked. Will you not, Erif?’

  She said nothing for a moment, then; ‘Not just now.’

  He gave it to her. She fastened on to it, leant forward, and touched her foot all over with it. The pain went further and further back, till she scarcely felt it, only, behind it and coming into consciousness now, the deep bruising of her thighs. He bandaged her ankle as she told him, with a bit of his own shirt. ‘Now I want the star back,’ he said, and opened her hand and took it.

  ‘I can do magic without that,’ said Erif Der.

  ‘You can’t ever magic the Greek bit of me.’ She said nothing. ‘Not even when we’re married. Can you?’