The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Kleomenes was not going to face a pitched battle if he could help it, yet. He held all the passes, and that was the only thing that was needed so far; Antigonos failed to get through his lines, and fell back towards Megara. That night the King’s Mess wore garlands of wild laurel and mountain flowers. They leant over the map and talked loud and pointed and thought joyfully of the barbarians slinking back. They all hoped that if Antigonos was discouraged enough at first, he would back out of his bargain with the League. And they were very possibly right. Only, that same evening, when Aratos and Antigonos were riding north in retreat, both talking gloomily enough, they turned a corner of the road, and there were a dozen men waiting for them, just come up from the sea with thick boots and cloaks, who drew their horses aside and said they were come secretly from Argos. They said that Argos would change sides. Kleomenes had not cancelled debts or divided the land, and the poor, who had been so quick to believe in him and march about shouting his name were now burning little scarecrows of him in backyard bonfires. Aratos said at once that he himself would take fifteen hundred Macedonians to Argos by sea. He shook hands all round with the Argos men. ‘I knew this would happen,’ he said, ‘but it might have happened just too late. Now we’re in time.’ And Antigonos, coughing, agreed that this was so, and they had probably won the war already.

  Kleomenes thought Argos was safe. The Argos documents and arrangements were all in the hands of Megistonous, his step-father, who was absolutely certain that everything was going well; he had begged Kleomenes not to banish several Argives whom he suspected of working against him. Megistonous was, of course, a much older man; he could not quite be expected to believe in too much revolution. His idea was that it was all very well in Sparta, since it had produced what he thought of as the society of Lycurgos and the army of Leonidas. But other cities were not like Sparta; they had no ancient and simple past to go back to—their beginnings had been most likely under tyrants—so what use was a change to them? Besides, as he said himself, supposing it had the same effect on Argos as it had on Sparta—well, there was not room for two Spartas in one Hellas.

  Being an older man, he slept lightly. He woke as Panteus jumped into the dark of his tent, crying out: ‘Bad news! Come to the King!’ He knew exactly where his spear and shield were, and picked them up quickly and followed Panteus, who threw his cloak over Megistonous, thinking how thin and grey he looked under the cold stars. The King’s tent was across a dip in the hills filled with short thistles. It was impossible to go very quickly. Panteus gave him the news that Argos, whose loyalty he had given his word for, had changed sides. Then neither of them said anything till they came to Kleomenes.

  The King spoke very bitterly to his stepfather: ‘You have probably spoiled everything. I suppose I was wrong to trust an old man—too old and blind to see what was going on behind his back. I will not make the same mistake again. Megistonous, you must go and put it right.’

  ‘I will either put it right or die,’ said Megistonous, very much shaken.

  ‘You can do nothing with less than two thousand,’ said the King, scowling at an unrolled list. ‘I can’t spare my Cretans from this hill work. You must take the reserves from Corinth. God, I shall lose Corinth too over this! Panteus, give them five hundred of yours.’

  Panteus said: ‘My brigade’s not strong now. What about Idaios? His men didn’t get the same smashing up in the pass that mine did.’

  ‘No time,’ said the King, ‘he’s away on the right now. But he can take over the Donkey’s Back from you tomorrow.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Panteus. ‘Have I an hour to give them hot breakfast before they march?’

  The King nodded. Panteus saluted and hurried out. The King and his stepfather were alone in the tent. ‘And before you march,’ said Kleomenes, ‘bring me over all the documents you have about Argos. I will see to them myself in future.’

  He jerked his chair straight under the hanging lamp and sat down. Megistonous stood in front of him and said: ‘Things may not be as bad as your messenger said. Kleomenes, I will get Argos back for you.’

  ‘I hope you will,’ said Kleomenes, ‘but—God, Megistonous, you had better try your hardest.’ For a moment his upper teeth showed like a wolf’s. ‘Get me those papers now—yourself.’

  Kleomenes sat on under the lamp with his lists of men and money and material. They were beginning to be rather grim reading. He began to mark numbers against the cities who were likely to be influenced by Argos. No more sleep this night! New lists—yes. He called to the guard at the tent door: ‘Someone to write! Who’s near? One of my nephews—quick now!’ He picked up a big waxed slate from the floor by his bed and started doing sums on it, rubbing them out with his thumb when they went wrong, in the way sums are apt to, late at night. The guard came back at the double with Agesipolis and young Kleomenes running sleepily after him. ‘I said one of you!’

  ‘Uncle, we didn’t know which—’

  ‘Little fools! Agesipolis, sit down and write. I will dictate from the lists. Date it.’ Agesipolis rubbed his eyes and sat down cross-legged on the edge of the bed with pen and paper. His young brother went back to sleep again, and did not even hear the news of Argos until the next day. The King dictated three lists, while Agesipolis, who did not know what they were about, got sleepier and sleepier. Then Megistonous came back, fully armed and breathless with the weight of a small chest which he put on the ground in front of Kleomenes and unlocked. Kleomenes said nothing. One by one Megistonous went through the documents: promises, letters, bargains, notes on one man and another, some quite old. Once or twice Kleomenes questioned him sharply, and he answered. At the end he locked the chest again and handed over the key. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I did my best for Sparta.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Kleomenes, ‘and failed.’

  ‘I doubt if any of the younger men would have done better,’ said Megistonous. By this time Agesipolis was thoroughly awake again. He did not think he had ever seen anyone looking so miserable as the old man did now. He said again: ‘At least wish me luck before we go, Kleomenes!’

  ‘Luck! You understand, Megistonous, that if you fail to retake Argos my communications are cut, Sparta is in danger, and I must fall back and let the Macedonian through?’

  ‘Oh God!’ said Megistonous, suddenly and sharply, as though something were breaking in him, ‘I will not have everything put on me, Kleomenes!’

  ‘I am not going to argue about it,’ said the King. He looked down at his lists again.

  Megistonous still stood there. Young Agesipolis, watching them, closed his hand so hard on his pen that it broke. He reached for a new one and began to cut it. Panteus came back, also fully clothed and armed. ‘All ready,’ he reported.

  Kleomenes looked up: ‘March, Megistonous,’ he said.

  Panteus dropped his spear clattering, and took Megistonous by both hands. ‘Good luck!’ he said. ‘You’ll do it yet!’

  And then Kleomenes, as though it were being pulled out of him, said too: ‘Good luck!’

  Agesipolis wondered again what it must be like being King of Sparta. As a boy he had always been bitterly resentful that his father Kleombrotos had been driven into exile and so died, and that he himself had no chance of the kingship. He had been angry with his uncle, the son of the man who had done it, his uncle whom he had never seen. Now he was not so sure that it was altogether enviable to be king. He hoped Panteus would see how much work he had done that night! None of the others wrote as clearly as he did; the King had said so himself.

  The next day Kleomenes rode down to Corinth, where he found every one very anxious; he reassured them and strolled about, and asked to see a very fine picture by Apelles which he had heard that one of the rich Corinthians had. He explained that all this about Argos was merely an affair of a few rioters. Megistonous would be back in a week and it would be all over. While they were actually with him, most people felt quite confident again; even afterwards, when they talked to one another, things did not see
m so bad. There was certainly no sign of Antigonos. Panteus was in command of the Isthmus for that day. He had watchers stationed at every point and a system of signals so that he could be warned immediately if there was any sign of an army coming out on to the piece of flat land between them and Megara. He himself watched for a time and wondered if there was much chance of Megistonous succeeding at Argos. He got some comfort from the very beautiful shape and colour of the mountain Geranea, twenty miles away.

  Meanwhile Kleomenes and Therykion and Berris Der went to look at the Apelles. It had been painted for the owner’s great-grandfather—an early piece. The colours were still wonderfully fresh. But, of course, it usually had curtains hung over it. Ah, it was an honour to draw them for King Kleomenes! It was, like most of Apelles’ earlier work, at least, a story picture, divided up into loose, bowery squares by fruiting vines with birds fluttering among them, grape-peckers. Inside the squares was the whole life of Ariadne. ‘Beautiful,’ said the King, ‘a possession for all time. Fortunate Corinth with such citizens!’ With much love and pride, the owner pointed out its special features; here in the distance the palace of Minos, tiny and golden; you could almost count the bricks! Here the shadow of the slipped cloak on Ariadne’s wrist. Here in a corner the locust on a twig. Here the leaping Maenad—what vigour! And there Ariadne turning towards the God between tears and smiles.

  Berris Der stood back and looked at it. In the first moment he had disliked it intensely, these open eyes, the flesh you almost shuddered from, it seemed so solid, so made for touch, as though it had all the impermanence of the real muscle and skin, which would die and become corrupted—no immortality, no other value given by the painter’s own mind to stand between you and the thing itself. Then after a few minutes he began to admire the amazing craftsmanship. He half shut his eyes, trying to get out of his mind the inevitable contexts of all these solid people and animals—that, after all, was partly a matter of the period—and trying to see the thing as he himself saw a picture, as form and colour. He began to get the rhythm of it, the balance of the great groups, the significance of each of those disturbing little rocks, which, when first seen, just worried one with their grasses and shadows and kept the eye from following the swing of the picture. Having seen all that, he looked again at the separate scenes and was suddenly struck with the gaiety of it, the feeling of spring, as though the vines had just fruited out of all season at the coming of Dionysos! Yes, yes; now all these arms and legs and expressions, all that realism which had been so desperately trying at first, dropped back into its place. For once Berris Der felt that he could not have done it better himself. With all sincerity he praised the picture, giving the owner a few new phrases to try on the next eminent person he showed it to. Who happened also to be a king, Antigonos Doson, the King of Macedonia.

  It was the next day that Kleomenes got the first message from Argos, saying that Megistonous was killed, and asking for immediate support. Two more messages to the same effect got to him. That night he and his army withdrew from the passes, and immediately lost Corinth, which made haste to open its gates to Antigonos. Indeed there was nothing else it could do.

  He marched straight for Argos, hoping possibly to take it in time. After all these months of glory and success he was suddenly anxious about Sparta itself. His brother was there, but with practically no forces, only the oldest year-class who were not fit for active service with his own army. He had come so quickly from Corinth that he took them by surprise and for a moment held Argos again. He sent his Cretan bowmen down into the streets to clear them. From the highest part of the city he could watch the red and yellow of the Cretans in street after street. Neolaidas knelt beside him, watching too, while the surgeon stitched up a flesh wound in his arm. The body of Megistonous lay behind them wrapped in a purple cloak; his own men had got it away. He had died very bravely, at the head of them.

  When the surgeon was done with him, Neolaidas stood up, holding on to a pillar and facing for a moment the other way. And he cried ‘Look!’ And Kleomenes turned and saw that it was all too late; for Antigonos was coming down on them from the mountains. In the complete visibility of a summer afternoon he saw the tiny white paths that zigzagged down to the further side of the plain beginning to glitter and crawl with spears and men of the Macedonian phalanx. He sent Neolaidas quick with orders to the bugles. Retreat, retreat, they called to the Spartan army in and about Argos. He had no more than time to get his men away safely from the walls. They left most of their dead and badly wounded, though the body of Megistonous went on with them towards Sparta and Kratesikleia.

  Then the whole thing began to fall away from him. The troops from the allied cities left, sitting solidly at the roadside while the hurrying Laconians marched by, cursing them but not able to compel them, or taking the first fork of the road that would get them home. The Mantineans stayed with him, mostly because they were afraid to try and join the League again after a rather evil massacre of Achaean settlers which had happened when they first went over to Sparta. The most cheerful people were the mercenaries. It was not, after all, their funeral. If things looked too bad in Sparta, they were certainly not bound by their agreements to die for any king or any revolution!

  The Spartans themselves marched on the whole silently. Sometimes a song would start and go on for a time. Then it would die out. The walking wounded were helped along. Agesipolis and his brother had given their horses to two of them and were marching together. It suddenly came to Agesipolis what those lists he had written for his uncle had really been about. They had never been in a retreat before. It was nasty. Hippitas rode past them—he was too lame now to keep up on a long march—and produced an old joke or two which made them laugh now, the mere idea of ordinary life was so welcome. At last they halted in Tegea, for the moment safe. Antigonos would not follow them up so far—not yet.

  Kleomenes was beginning to think of plans, or scarcely yet plans, but possibilities, narrow tracks their hopes might creep somehow up. He was welcomed by kindly, silent people in Tegea, and while he took his armour off and washed, the largest room in the house was made ready for the Mess. The smell of cooking food began. One after another they came in and began eating bread and radishes, all there was on the table so far. Phoebis was telling someone about an eagle he had seen—on the right. Was that a good sign? There was a knock on the outer door. One or two turned, wondering what it was, but the King had his map out and was pointing excitedly with a twig. Someone drew back the curtain at their door, and two men came in whom they all knew, slaves of the King’s household. They went quickly up to the King and one of them handed him a letter. Then both stood back, very hurriedly, as though they were afraid of him. He opened the letter. It was from his mother. It told him that Agiatis had died that morning.

  Chapter Six

  HE HANDED THE letter to Idaios, who happened to be next him, and dropped his head forward over the table. His hands, reaching out, crumpled up the parchment of the map. Phoebis and Therykion had both jumped at Idaios to read the letter over his shoulders. Phoebis turned to the slaves and whispered to the one who was left; the other had gone off, even before anyone told him to do it, to fetch Panteus. Agesipolis and young Kleomenes, hungry and thinking they were late, came running in, but checked on the threshold, throwing up their heads questioningly, like young hounds. It was at the noise of their feet that Kleomenes lifted his head. He stared at them for a little time, while they stayed struck still, and then he nodded at them and seemed to be trying to smile. His face had gone a queer yellowish colour, sunburn over white. He looked at his hands, saw that they were spoiling the map, and took them off it, laid them one on each knee. Phoebis went to him then, and knelt beside him and began to stroke and kiss his legs and feet, calling him by funny child nicknames, helot pet names that dated from their childhood together and that he had hardly thought of since then. Every one in the room knew now. Someone was coming along from the kitchen with a clatter of bowls and spoons. Therykion parted the curtai
ns and took them quietly, then the soup as it came.

  Panteus walked into the room and over to the King. He said: ‘We knew this would come sooner or later. She knew it too. Kleomenes, she will never get the worst news now.’

  The King seemed to be trying to answer. They all waited. At last he said: ‘We shall want night-guards on the walls here, and an outpost with good communications along the north and north-east roads. It will be important to have a strong garrison in Orchomenos now. Mnasippos, you will take three hundred of your best men there. Therykion, will you talk to the Cretans tomorrow? Don’t promise them more pay if you can help it, but do if they will not stay otherwise. I had told them that I would see to it myself. But I am going to Sparta.’

  Panteus said: ‘I will come with you.’ The King began to produce some elaborate reason why he must stay. ‘There’s no need at all for me to be here,’ Panteus went on, as ordinarily as possible. ‘Everything will be quite safe now that you have given your orders.’

  ‘Yes!’ said the King suddenly, ‘don’t leave me alone!’ He started on to his feet, knocking into Phoebis, and then sat down again. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘this is one of the lessons. I am going to be good at it. She was good at hers.’ He began to smooth the map out with his fingers, a little jerkily still. Deliberately he began to control them, one after the other. Phoebis and Panteus sat down, one on each side of him. He started eating, finished his bowlful, and took some wine, like a clever child who has just learnt how to do it in the company of his elders. He said suddenly and loudly across the table to Neolaidas, who happened to be opposite to him: ‘It is curious, but I find the worst things are the easiest to bear calmly. I wonder if that is usual.’ When there was no answer—for what could Neolaidas say?—he went on reflectively: ‘I suppose this is because the occasion is more like one which might be taken as an example of how the good man should act. So one can take this direct example and follow it. Would you say that was how it happens?’