The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Yes, anything was better than the class-war which Kleomenes was allowing and encouraging; division of the land, equality—as though there ever could be equality!—sometimes even the freeing of slaves. And over all the horrible taint of Sparta, the brutality, those barking Dorian voices, the great red-cheeked striding women. It was queer, but when Aratos went, as he occasionally had to during his life, among Spartans or Spartanising Peloponnesians, there was always a smell which made him physically sick: the smell of black broth and sour bread and coarse cloth and unwashed bodies. Antigonos of Macedon would protect him and his cities from this, the fair-dealing, gentle, clever king, the kind of man Aratos could understand and deal with, brave as only someone in the last years of a mortal illness can be, ironic in speech and letter as befitted the world in which they both lived. Better to have the Macedonians.

  But before Antigonos had quite made up his mind to come, and he did not come without his bargaining, the Achaean League was being battered by Kleomenes. He took Pellene, he and his officers whom he had made as good as himself. There were about twenty of them in his own Mess, and he valued them all intensely; it was a strain and anxiety for him when one of them came in late; that might mean he was killed and lost for Sparta and the New Times. Punctuality was part of the discipline, as he saw it, and they all tried to live up to it, and meet once a day at least under his eye and see him breathe calmly.

  It was worst when Panteus was late, as he was today. The King could not eat, and hardly touched his wine. There had been some skirmishing round the walls of Pellene with a force Aratos had sent out to see whether by any chance the Spartans were resting too securely on their laurels. But they were not. And while the Achaeans were being kept off by javelin men from the walls, Panteus and a picked fifty from his brigade, the youngest year-class, all splendid runners and eager for adventure and praise, had gone round a spur of the hills to get them from behind. It was perhaps rash, but very much in the spirit of the times, and if it succeeded was the kind of thing which would bring great glory to Sparta and discourage her enemies. A moral effect of this sort might perhaps mean another city coming over easily. But that was the last that had been seen of Panteus. The Achaeans had disappeared from under the walls, leaving some dead. And then? Phoebis said that one of his men had seen Panteus since. ‘You liar, Phoebis!’ said the King. This was true, but Phoebis looked hurt and did not admit it. He had known the King longer than any of them and was prepared to lie to him as much as he thought proper.

  It worried them all that the King should not eat. Not that it was very tempting. Everything on the table smelt strong of barley and tripe and garlic. Therykion went out and came back in a few minutes with white bread and thin slices of smoked ham, as they knew how to make and cut it in Arkadia, and a leaf of garden fruit, raspberries and a few of the first pears. He had seen them earlier that day in the kitchen of the house where he was billeted, but had looked away himself. He put them down beside the King and went back to his place. Kleomenes ate some of the fruit.

  They prolonged supper a good deal, hoping any moment that the missing one would turn up. Mnasippos, a youngish, good-looking man rather spoilt by a sword-cut over his left eye, got up and went out to look for him. Idaios, another of the younger ones, began nervously to whistle a camp song, but Kleomenes growled at him so angrily that he stopped. At last the King suddenly jumped up, startling them all, and went back to his own working-room in the house they were in, which belonged to one of the magistrates of Pellene. Phoebis followed him quietly. Released, the others all began talking loudly and filled their cups again. After a few minutes Phoebis came back. ‘No good,’ he said, ‘but anyway he’s keeping in the house. I told them to let me know if he goes out: put the wind up them! The room’s all right, anyhow, flowers and all and the best bed. With any luck he’ll sleep. But I wish to God I knew where Panteus is! If he’s gone and got killed, blast him—! Bad job.’

  Mnasippos came back. ‘All I can hear is he brought it off, smashed up that raiding party, gave them a nice story to tell Aratos—the ones that got back! Nothing about him. We’d surely hear if he’d been hurt.’

  Neolaidas, another of them, said inadequately, simply voicing their anxiety: ‘I would hate it if he got killed!’

  Idaios said: ‘My young brother’s in his brigade. He says there’s no one like him.’

  Phoebis said: ‘If anything has happened, it will be nice for whoever has to tell the King.’

  ‘You and I should do that,’ said Therykion, looking up. ‘You had better stand by him. I will do the talking. I will say—’

  ‘Oh, stop!’ said Mnasippos, and banged a cup down on the table. ‘He’s all right.’ They wished Hippitas were there, but he had a javelin wound in his arm and a slight fever after it, and was lying up in the house of a widow woman, who was looking after him as though she meant him to marry her.

  Suddenly Phoebis threw up his head, listening, then dashed out of the room. He was back in a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is. So that’s all right. Got two boys with him. Don’t know who. Good night. We’ll damn him properly tomorrow for giving us such a scare.’

  The King was doing that already. He had made up his mind while he waited in pain that Panteus’ plan was utterly foolish, that he had thrown away life and love for a boy’s trick, scheming for a little bit of glory! In the moment of relief after he saw that Panteus was really there, not even wounded, he shot it all out at him, cursing him up and down, with his voice jerking and breaking. ’All right!’ said Panteus, interrupting him, trying not to be angry or hurt, ‘if it was honour and praise I wanted, I’m getting them, aren’t I! Don’t you even want to know if my plan did work, Kleomenes?’

  The King was silent while Panteus told him, then said: ‘You had more luck than you deserved. A mad scheme! How many of your men were killed? Four? And out of the youngest year-class, four of the future that you’ve killed!’

  Panteus put his shield down against the foot of the couch; his hand shook; he was afraid of throwing it violently at something if he kept it. He stood close to the King and said low: ‘I’ll go to my quarters now, sir; I don’t care much for this in front of the boys.’

  That stopped Kleomenes. He stood up with a jerk and said: ‘Who? What boys?’ Then stared at them where they stood behind Panteus, embarrassed, very close together. The elder one was in full armour, very fine, inlaid in gold on the shield with a design of a baby gripping two snakes. He had the beginnings of a fair beard; there was a spear in his right hand and his left arm was round the younger one, very like him but beardless still. This one had no breastplate and his forearm was bound up and in a sling; underneath he had a tunic of good stuff, woven, as far as it showed, with the same design. They did not speak; they were afraid, tongue-tied. Kleomenes looked at the device of the young Herakles on both of them. ‘You must be my blood,’ he said.

  Panteus stood back, letting them face one another. ‘They are your sister’s sons,’ he said.

  ‘Chilonis!’ cried out Kleomenes. ‘Are you her boys?’

  ‘Yes, my uncle,’ said the eldest one, ‘I am Agesipolis and this is young Kleomenes. We have wanted to come to you for months, but mother would not let us. She said you would go the same way as our father and King Agis. But at last she said we might. Besides, I am old enough, for that matter, not to need a woman’s advice. We have been with the army a little time now, but we did not want you to know until—until we thought we deserved your praise.’

  He looked down at the younger one, holding him close still, and the boy said lamentably: ‘We did think this was well done, my uncle! I was kicked by a horse in their flight afterwards and my arm broke. He helped me and bound it up. It took a long time. But he said you would say it was an honour for me!’

  Kleomenes went up and kissed them both. ‘Forgive me!’ he said. ‘Chilonis won’t write to me or have anything to do with me these days, but she cannot have forgotten me altogether. Did she never tell you her brother was an angry man, unkind,
impatient, one who hurts his dearest friends? I am a bad Spartan over this; I cannot stay calm and use few words. And a worse Stoic, for all my teaching. You two must make Panteus your pattern, not me. He is the best part of me; forget what I have said to him. Agesipolis—young Kleomenes—my mind is clear of evil now, I give you your praise! It was well done of you and still better done of your captain. I will write to your mother, and perhaps this time she will write back to me. Will you stay in Sparta now?’

  ‘We hope to.’

  ‘And accept the discipline and the New Times? And me?’

  ‘Surely, my uncle,’ said Agesipolis.

  Panteus said: ‘These boys should have supper now. Come!’

  Kleomenes said: ‘I have had little enough supper myself. There will be some left here.’ He held out a hand to the younger boy, who took it gladly, the other to Panteus.

  But Panteus was picking up his shield again. ‘I think you were right,’ he said. ‘It was perhaps rash of me not to have taken twice the numbers. We did it, I suppose, too much for honour and glory and all that. These things are good for boys. But you were right not to offer them to me.’

  Kleomenes said nothing, but took his two nephews into the other room. Therykion was still there, writing his diary under the lamp at a corner of the table. Kleomenes presented him to the sons of Kleombrotos and Chilonis. ‘They are the two that Chilonis had with her in the temple of Poseidon when my father, Leonidas, came hunting down Kleombrotos, to kill him with Agis. Do you remember that, boys?’

  They shook their heads. ‘He was only a baby,’ said Agesipolis, ‘and I little more. Sometimes I think I remember, but that is all. Mother has told us about it.’

  The King filled their cups himself and gave them bread and cheese, and cold black broth to the elder one to see if he would take it. He finished it splendidly, and most of the second helping which Kleomenes rather maliciously gave him. Through a spoonful he suddenly remarked that he was married and had a son. He said it with some embarrassment and as if he definitely did not want it mentioned again. Kleomenes remembered that Chilonis, left in charge, had married her son quietly and firmly to a suitable and virtuous wife. Agesipolis had now done his duty and presented his mother with a grandson, who was called after him, still another Agesipolis.

  But young Kleomenes, with his broken arm, was tired and sobbed a little, leaning against his brother. Panteus came in and ate his supper standing, hungrily. At the end he collected the boys, taking the older one’s spear and shield so that he could help his brother better. ‘Come back when you’ve got them to their quarters,’ said the King over his shoulder.

  Panteus said: ‘No. I’m sorry, but I’m tired tonight. There’s nothing you need to see me about.’ And he went out.

  In about half an hour Therykion said: ‘You’d better go after him, Kleomenes. Sometimes even kings must do that.’

  ‘Did you hear what I said to him?’

  ‘No, but I guessed. For all our sakes, for Sparta’s sake, Kleomenes, try to keep steady till the end of this. You took the whole burden of the New Times at first. It’s lighter now, but still the whole depends on you, and you may have years of it yet, and all Macedonia to face.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kleomenes. ‘I will try, Therykion. Tell me, what happened about the boy you fell in love with?—I forget his name.’

  ‘He was flattered at first,’ Therykion said, rolling up his diary. ‘Then he wanted someone younger and gayer. I don’t blame him. And he had plenty to choose from.’

  The King said: ‘I’m sorry. Therykion, have you read Iambulos’s The Blessed Island? I was reading the chapters about how they land and begin to understand the laws. It is very beautiful, and life gets further and further away from that. You should read it. Well, I must try to make my peace, anyhow. Good night, Therykion.’

  He knocked at the door of the house where Panteus was quartered, and after a time a sleepy slave opened it and showed him the way. He went in; it was dark; Panteus was asleep already. But when the King stumbled over his long spear he woke up with a start. ‘What is it, Kleomenes?’ he said, and his voice sounded horribly strained and tired.

  Kleomenes said: ‘I was unjust. You had done very well for Sparta.’

  Panteus said: ‘I thought it was something that mattered. Why did you wake me? I was so tired.’

  Kleomenes groped his way across the room. ‘Can you sleep on injustice?’

  ‘I could sleep on anything tonight. Those boys ran me out. I’m too old for running five miles and then fighting. Go to sleep yourself, Kleomenes.’

  The King heard, and guessed him pulling the blankets up over his ears and heard the pricking of the hay-filled mattress as he turned over with his face to the wall. He took another step, knocking into the armour, cutting himself a little on something, and stumbled against the bed, and stooped and shook Panteus by his humped-up shoulder.

  Panteus turned over on to his back and reached up a sleepy arm, groping for the King’s neck. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Even if you were hard on me I shall forget it tomorrow.’

  Kleomenes said: ‘A woman would not be hard to you; she would not hurt you, whatever you did to her. And if she did she could comfort you afterwards as I can’t. A woman like Agiatis.’

  ‘I don’t want comfort!’ said Panteus crossly. ‘And there aren’t any other women like Agiatis.’

  ‘If you were married to Philylla,’ said the King, ‘she would put it right when I am unjust.’

  Panteus pulled the King’s head down towards his own and said: ‘I’ll marry Philylla when the time comes, but if you think I shall let her come between us two for good or for evil—! If she’d been in this bed with me tonight, would I have told her? I can be in love with her for a time, and I shall give her all she need want, but you’re as much part of me as my heart and head are. Nothing’s going to alter that, Kleomenes. Now, supposing you let me go to sleep.’

  For a few minutes Kleomenes stayed beside him, kneeling on the floor, till he could hear by his breathing that Panteus was fast asleep, beyond dreams. Then he turned and went out; his eyes were now so used to the darkness that he did not stumble over anything.

  Chapter Four

  ERIF DER WAS STILL hunting for help. Philylla told her about the gods of Olympos. She knew them already as names and in art, and in the sense that Sphaeros and others used them in their books, to represent qualities or elements. As gods, they seemed to her to be dead. She was frightened of the smiling statue of Apollo in the market, but knew that Berris would be able to explain exactly how it had been made frightening. She thought that perhaps what was really alarming about it was the power of the craftsman who had made it in the beginnings of Sparta. She and Philylla rode together to the sacred places, Amyklae and Thornax, passing through those rather terrible oak groves which lay round the sanctuary of Zeus of the Dark Woods. At Thornax the image of Apollo was hidden, but at Amyklae she saw it towering over them from its throne of gold and bronze, and ramping, ancient leopards and horsemen: the horrible great pillar of bronze topped by a frowning, staring helmeted face with painted eyes and lips and stiff arms holding a spear and bow. Artemis of the Marsh was a pillar too, a wooden pillar dressed in red with a polished head and long tresses that hid the shapeless neck. A kind of doll that might come alive. Her place smelt rather evilly of blood. Erif Der had bad dreams about them both.

  The priestess of Artemis was Philylla’s great-aunt; she took the omens for her when she sacrificed, and clucked and nodded her head, but did not say very much. Erif Der stood by Philylla, looking on, and bowing her head when the others did. When they were out of the temple again she said: ‘What happens now? Does Artemis help you?’

  ‘Not exactly that,’ said Philylla, ‘but it turns my luck if it needs turning. It shows I am not careless or proud. Fate has all the Gods in her net. We believe she is Justice too. She cannot be looked at too close, so the Gods come between us and her lest we should see to madness. They show us if we ask them, a little o
f what is happening, beyond appearances.’

  ‘What did they show you this time?’

  ‘They told me to be careful. If I was careful I would get my heart’s desire. They did not tell me which desire!’ She laughed. ‘This way one does not see far inward, but there are other places. Apollo at Delphi is the furthest looker. He is the youngest of the gods.’

  That seemed to be how things worked in Hellas. The other things she had seen at Amyklae were the great bronze tripods made in the days before Sparta had cast out beauty. Also there was the image of a woman holding a lyre that was called Sparta and always hung with garlands. It seemed to them both to be like Agiatis, but perhaps it was romantic of them to think so. At any rate, it was more like a woman than a goddess.

  Erif Der had a letter from Tarrik about the middle of summer. He said that the corn was looking good and the other crops much as they should be. Linit was working hard as Spring Queen. He also said that the Red Riders had come again, and he had led the men of Marob against them and had driven them back into the forest; but when things were happening fast, if they were all galloping about and shooting and being shot at, people would suddenly call him Harn Der. He said that the secret road was going on, but Essro still would not see him. Once he had ridden there, and, for fun, carried off Yan on his horse. Essro had screamed for five minutes and then fainted; but Yan had liked it. He was a big, strong boy. Klint was big and strong too. He could sit up by himself and roll over, and he was trying to stand.

  She wrote back to him unhappily, but not so unhappily as she felt. She had little to say that would make sense when it got to Marob! Only news of Berris. And King Kleomenes. Battles, always battles! What did they matter either to her or Tarrik? That Sphaeros was no use; nor any of the Gods she had heard of yet. That she had his knife and watched it, but it had gone dull and ordinary. She knew, though, from him, that this was only because of the air of Hellas cutting off the magic there was between them, so she was not anxious. She hoped her star was bright and warm for him, even between him and another Spring Queen!