The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  All the rest of the girls had got ashore and into cover. “No matter,” I thought. The slope will slow them; trust a hungry dog to find the hare.” Young Pylenor was gaining fast. I made someone stand ready with an oar to throw him. There would be a struggle for sure, and both might drown.

  The beach was all empty sand and kicked-up footprints, when the thicket parted. Out came a girl again, running like a deer straight down to the sea. The men yelled with joy, and called out the greetings of their choice. I did not add mine. For one thing, I saw why she had wasted no time on dressing. She had slung on her quiver, and got her bow.

  It was the Scythian kind, short and strong. She waded in nearly to the knee, before she tossed the rope of silver back from her shoulder, and nocked the arrow to her string. By then, I was hit already. The lift of her breast to her back-bent arm, the curve of her neck with its strong and tender cord drawn like the bowstring, shot me clean through with a shaft of flame. She stood to aim, all gold and silver touched with rose; her brows pulled together, her eyes level and clear, and the bawdy clamor passing her by as rain runs off crystal. Her glance raked us over like a hunter’s who from some bellowing herd chooses a beast for the pot. I never saw a face of such flawless pride.

  She was ready; but instead of shooting she called, “Molpadia!” Her voice was cold, wild and pure like a boy’s or a bird’s. She signed with her head; I saw what she was up to. The swimming girl, coming head-on, was between her and the man.

  I shouted, “Pylenor!” loud as a war-cry. The girl had swerved in the sea. But, deaf with water and the fury of the chase, he neither saw nor heard. He turned in her wake, giving his side to the shore. The “Paff!” of the arrow was like the sound of a rising dolphin; it was the end of his dolphin days. It took him under his forward arm; like a speared fish he jerked up gaping, thrashed about, and sank.

  My men were shouting with anger. I felt the ship rock as the archers sprang on the benches, heard the dull pluck of the sea-spoiled strings, the arrows puttering and splashing. The ship drove on. I felt as if my eyes were pulling it.

  She stood laughing in the water. Her laughter made my backbone ripple. It had neither shame nor shamelessness; she laughed alone, pleased with her victory over strange monstrous things. She was like the Moon Goddess, deadly and innocent; gentle and fierce like the lion. She waited to cover the swimmer coming to land.

  The light offshore breeze bucked the bronze beak; I seemed to ride it like a stallion. My blood was all wine and fire. I watched her hand dip to her quiver, and heard with half an ear voices behind me: “My lord, get down; my lord, take care; sir, sir, you are right in bowshot.” The bow rose and her eyes followed the arrow—nearer, nearer to mine.

  To meet them I swung out from the gryphon, holding by one hand. That opened them wide. They were gray; gray as spring rain. Next moment they narrowed, and her arrow vanished behind its point.

  Men were telling each other to pull me down off the prow. I knew none of them would dare. I had to speak. But what would reach her? Only the speech of mating lions; he sheathes his claws when she growls. Let her know me by it, now or never. I leaned out from the beak, and raised my arm in greeting.

  For the moment all three were still: her steady eyes and the arrowhead. Then all three shifted just a trace; she loosed the bow, and skewered the leather of some man’s war-helm. She waded further to grasp the wrist of the swimming girl, and ran into the thicket with her, never looking back.

  The rowers backed water, the ship hove-to. I stared at the check, no thought in my mind but to follow and find her. The pilot said, “It was about here he went down, my lord.”

  He was a man I had valued; I had forgotten him as if he had never been. There was the dark blur of his body. I stripped and dived in myself to raise it. It was partly to do him honor; but I thought, too, I should be quicker than the others.

  Even while I was about it, I was thinking, “Does she watch us among the leaves? What will she say to her mother? ‘Some men saw me bathing? Or, ‘I saw a man’?”

  Someone was hailing me. It was Pirithoos, leaning from his poop. “Ahoy, Theseus! How’s that for an Amazon?”

  I had not thought of it. I, who had been in Crete; who had seen tossing in the bull-dance such silver hair. She had seemed only herself, without kind or peer. Slowly the truth came home. There would be no men of her tribe to fight for her. No; I had met the warrior I must win her from. She with her weapons and her lion’s pride, and I disarmed.

  Then I thought, “She came down alone to the water; but the rest were never held back by fear. So they had her orders. She is one who is obeyed.”

  Aloud I said, “They owe us something. Let us see what they will give us, to clear the debt.”

  The men gave a cheer; but their voices had less heat in them than before. They looked at the shore, a gift to hidden archers, and thought of their spoiled bowstrings. Their zest was for something softer. If I did not take care they would be for going.

  I called to Pirithoos, “One of my men is dead, and we must make him a decent funeral. Let us coast to the first clear place. Then we can share the loot as well.”

  This carried everyone. I advise any chief who leads warriors on adventure never to put off sharing the spoil. If it lies about too long, men take a fancy to this or that and set their hearts on it. Then you will have trouble.

  A little way on there was a rocky point with a beach beside it. I gave orders for Pylenor’s grave and cairn. Then I took Pirithoos aside, and told him what I meant to do. He did not answer, but looked at me. At last I said, “Well?”

  “Shall I tell you, then?” He stood with hands on hips and head cocked sideways, and his glinting look. “No, I’ve had time to swallow what I had to say. We should quarrel, and all the same you would go; then when you were dead I should be sorry. Get gone, fool, and I’ll pray for you. If I can I’ll bring home your body. And if you get her, be easy; she’s safe from me.”

  After this we shared the spoils. I took care that the men were satisfied. Then I said, “This sword, bowl and bracelet I am giving from my own portion, as prizes in the Funeral Games. Let the dead be honored; as well as grave-gifts we owe him vengeance. This is the only chance we have, while their lookouts think we are busy over the rites. Who will come with me?”

  About a score stepped out, who were ready to miss the Games for love of Pylenor, or of me, or of adventure. The day stood midway between noon and the summer sunset. Up there it comes later than at home.

  While they cleared the track for the foot-race, we slipped up into the woods; then skirted the hillside till we struck the footpath the girls had used to the beach. It led us up through the open glades, by the winds and falls of a stream. There were hoofprints, and once a ribbon wet from the sea. Before long we sighted a village clearing. But when we crept up, we heard men’s voices and the cry of children; it was a peasant hamlet like any other.

  There was no doubt about the path or the bay below. “So,” I thought, “this is not a land of women, such as the tales tell of. They are something else, a people within a people.”

  The path passed the stream’s source—and here they had paused to drink—through the woods of myrtle and oak and walnut; the trees thinned, there were brambles ripening. The sky showed oftener, then opened wide; arbutus grew and birch and the little flowers of the mountain. I heard the singing of a lark, and something mixed with it. When the lark broke off, it was the laughter of a girl.

  My heart stopped, then leaped till it nearly choked me. I signed for silence; but the lark would not hush, and I must wait his careless pleasure. At last he sank to earth, and I caught, far off, the sound again.

  In the open ground before us there were slender aspens growing from short fine grass. The path threaded the trees; and a tuft of blue wool was tied to one of them. I thought, “This place is holy and forbidden,” and my neck shuddered. But I could no more have turned back than one can from birth.

  Ahead, jutting from the mountain, was a buttress
of huge piled boulders as great as barns. The path led round them. Beyond were voices; there would be a guard for sure. I signalled the men to wait, and climbed a little way down the slope where some whins were growing. Through these I crept till I reached the ridge. Then I looked down.

  Below and beyond was a broad shelf with a shallow dip to it. It was like the lap of the seated mountain, whose arms of rock rested either side upon her knees. Above was her tall head; her stony breast leaned over; and below, down from her knees, fell a great sheer crag. Nothing showed past its edge but wide air and distant sea, with eagles sailing. At the very rim was an altar of rough-hewn rock, with a thick pillar by it, and on the pillar a thing shaped like the boat of the waxing moon. Its crust was strange: glassy and rough, like pitted clinker. I had seen such a thing, once, at another shrine; but that was smaller than a fist, and this was as thick as a man. It was a mighty thunderstone. You could see it smelted and fired by the heat of the lightning; its strange ores glittered moltenly in the slanted sun. Smoke rose from the altar by it, and there was a smell of sweet resin in the air. Then I knew it was a sanctuary of Her whom men must not look on. And sitting on the grass in the hollow’s shelter were the guardians of the shrine.

  They were dressed now. Their clothes were of soft worked leather; tunics bordered or fringed, and Scythian trousers shaped to the leg. The dyes were bright and deep, as of berries and jewels; buckles of gold and silver twinkled. They looked like slender princes in the flower of youth, who meet after the hunt to drink wine and hear the bard.

  They were talking, or lying at ease in the late sun, or mending their gear. One was feathering arrows, with bundles of reeds and plumes beside her; some oiled their bows and javelins; another, bare to the waist, stitched at her tunic, while the girl beside her, as one could see from her speaking hands, was telling a tale. Behind them, backed to the mountain, were low stone houses roofed with thatch, and a wooden stable. There was a stone cooking-hearth with a fire in it, and some peasant girls in the dress of women fixing a spit. All this my eye passed over, as it sought in vain.

  Nothing stirred in the open doorways. She was not there. Yet I did not think, “What now?” My fate had grasped me with death-strong fingers. It had not brought me so far to let me go.

  I waved back to my men, that they must be ready to wait awhile. Then I lay down behind the ridge, looking through the whin bush, with my breast to the breast of the mountain, breathing the air of her home, hearing its murmurs and its breeze. One of the girls played a lyre, and sang. It was an ancient lay I had heard at home, sung by the harpers of the Shore Folk. It is a tongue I know well; some of my people have it. “If she knows it too,” I thought, “we can speak.”

  There was a sentry up on a rock, black against a white cloud, with two javelins in her hand and a crescent shield. She raised it, saluting someone beyond; and I heard a hunting horn. I waited. The cry of every bird, the edges of leaves, cut into me like bronze. I heard horsehoofs strike stone, then drum on grass. I was praying, though to what god I do not know.

  Over the far ridge came streaming a pack of deer-hounds, plumy and as white as curd. They flung themselves on the girls, who made much of them or laughed and cuffed them down, then jumped to their feet among the leaping dogs, like a household that expects the master.

  Down the gap of the far ridge came hunters riding, and she was first.

  I knew her by everything, though her face was too far to see: by her seat on her mountain pony, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her light spear. Under her little cap, the light hair on her temples had come loose, and flicked in the evening breeze. There was a dead buck across her horse’s shoulders; the bridle and headstall were hung with disks of silver that rang and glanced as she rode. On the easy ground the horse seeing its stable came at a hand-gallop; she was borne to me like a bird in flight. The girls ran to take the quarry; I saw her clear flashing face, while the riders came up after her and called the tale of the hunt.

  She swung down from the bare-backed horse and stroked him before they led him away. The girls began to break and skin the deer, setting the sacred haunch aside. They worked briskly, like strong young men, not flinching at the bloody entrails; and the fighting sense in me warned me that they were warriors. But I could have looked forever, careless of life or death.

  They flung the offal to the dogs, and washed their arms at a spring; then, while the cook-girls spitted the meat to roast, they took the haunch to the altar. It was she who offered it. She was their leader, as I had known.

  The smoke rose thickly. She went to the very edge of the great cliff and prayed, lifting her arms to the sky. As I looked at her, the strength of my limbs was turned to water, and my throat swelled as if with tears. She was so young; yet some god had touched her. I saw her alone with the holy one that she must answer to, and not to man or woman walking under the sun. And I thought, “She is more than queen. She understands the sacrifice that goes consenting. There is a king’s fate in her eyes.”

  Like the shadow of a dream was all my life gone by to me; like the womb’s dark threshold which the child forgets as he breathes and sees the day. I said to my heart, “Why did I come here? To kill her people and seize her with their blood upon me, like a common prize of war? Peleia of the Doves must have sent me mad; but this face has brought back my soul again. I will send my men home; I shall never avenge their comrade. If two or three will follow me for love, so be it; if not, so. Here in these hills I will live by my spear and by the chase; and some day I shall meet her as she rides alone. Then she must come to me, since a god wills it. For I am consumed as the fire from heaven consumes a forest; how can I suffer this but from a god?”

  She had left her prayer, and turned her face from the light of the low sun that sank towards the sea. One of the huntresses came up and walked with her. They talked like friends; it seemed to me this was the girl she had saved from Pylenor. I had heard in Crete that the Amazons are bound in love to one another; some said they took vows, and chose for life. Yet I felt no trouble at it; I thought only, “Our fate is joined; as I am born again for her, so will she be for me.”

  The light grew red as burnished copper; down in the valley it was already dusk. The fire looked brighter, and its glow leaped on the rocks. Someone brought to the altar touchwood soaked in resin, and it burned with a clear flame.

  I heard the soft tinkle of a sistrum. Five or six girls had come with instruments, and sat upon the ground. They had little drums, and flutes and cymbals. Softly at first, feeling their way into the time together, they began to sing and play. The rest stood round in a wide ring.

  The beat and the song grew stronger. It was music for a dance; a fierce pulsing tune that turned itself in an endless round, each time gathering fire. It pounded in my head; I felt that sacred, forbidden things were coming. But I lay on the rocks and looked, clasped by my fate.

  One of the girls leaped up. She pulled off her tunic of yellow kidskin, and stood half bare in the red light of the sunset and the fire. She was young; the tender curve of her half-ripe breasts was like polished gold. Her face was intent, almost to sternness, and yet serene. She held out her hands, and they put in them two sharp daggers, whose new-honed edges rippled with brightness. She lifted her armed hands towards the thunderstone, and began to dance.

  She moved slowly at first, weaving her arms across each other in subtle curves and signs. Then she spun faster; suddenly she flung out her hands, and bringing them inward sank the dagger-points in her breast.

  My breath hissed in my throat. But the maiden’s face had hardly changed. She had frowned a little as the points went in, then her stern calm returned. She drew out the daggers; I waited for the gush of blood. But her flesh was clear and smooth. In time to the beat she raised her hands again and again, pricking her waist, her throat and shoulders. Shudders of awe ran through me; my knuckles were pressed upon my mouth. Her skin was as whole as polished ivory before the carver scratches it. The drums throbbed, and the song soared higher. />
  Another girl stripped and leaped in beside her, tossing a hunting spear. She danced forward lightly, and leaned herself upon it, over the heart, again and again. But when she bent away the skin closed bloodless and white.

  “Theseus son of Aigeus,” I was thinking, “what have you done? You have seen the mystery which is death for men to look at. Run, hide in the woods, sacrifice to Apollo who frees men from curses. Why are you waiting?” But I answered, “For my life.”

  The sun was down; the bellies of the clouds were like glowing embers floating in a cool clear green. Two more girls were dancing, one with hunting knives, another with a sword. I looked into the ring of watchers. She stood silent, her hands at rest while the others beat the time. Her eyes were still. I thought I saw trouble there. Would she dance too? I was shaking, and could not tell if it was horror or desire.

  The girl Molpadia was dancing already; it was she who had the sword. She whirled it round her and pricked her bloodless throat; then she stretched out her hand, and called, and pointed upward. In the fading depths of the sky, like a ghostly sickle, the new moon had appeared. The cymbals crashed and a great cry rose from the singers. The music spun like a fiery wheel, the blades glittered and stabbed, the watchers were leaping into the dance, calling their leader. Her eyes as she lifted them to the crescent grew wide and dreaming. Suddenly she threw her cap away, and shook out her loosened hair, like a thick sheet of moonlight. The song shrilled like eagles’ screams.

  And then mixed with it came a sound that dashed me awake like icy water. It was the bay of a watchdog that cries out, “Thieves!”

  I had not thought of the dogs since they were fed. They had been tied or shut up, as we do our dogs when there is dancing. One must have slipped out and come our way. At his cry, someone loosed the pack.

  In the gloaming I saw the rush of whiteness. I leaped to my feet, fighting them off with shield and spear. Then I understood; for my men were fighting all round me. They had grown tired of waiting in ignorance, and guessed I had forgotten them; they wanted to see the dancing. But the dog had smelled them first.