The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I ran to them, dragging at the milling tangle, shouting for someone to give a hand. The farm people went on scrabbling in their ruins; after the god’s passing, they had no ear for kings. I cut loose with my dagger the horse that was not lame, and knotted the reins together. He could carry my weight that far.

  There was nothing left you could call a road. It was all slime and flotsam, channels and slides of stones. The horse had been broke to draw; he slithered and pecked and stumbled, and I dared not press him. I myself could have run faster, a few years gone.

  The mud had dying fish in it, flapping and squirming. There was a hissing by the road; the horse shied, and nearly threw me; a great dolphin, whistling through his blowhole, was trying to thrash towards the sea. The road climbed, for the slope grows steep there; it would soon be above the flood-line; yet still I heard horses crying, from where they had cried before, pausing sometimes as a trapped beast will pause from weariness, before it begins again. The bull bellowed once more, a sound of rage, or anguish. Struggling with my mount, which was getting scared again, I listened for another voice. But no voice called.

  At the top of the rise, the road bent round. Then I saw, and got off the horse and ran.

  Less than a bowshot off, on the shore below the road, a bloody mass of snared beasts struggled and heaved: three mangled horses, lashing and lunging. Above, blocking the road they had crashed down from, stood a bull, head down. He bellowed with fear and anger, and lurched, trying to paw the ground; lamed in a foreleg by the flood-wave that had swept him from his broken pen. Here he had struggled back to land, coated with weed and slime; a black bull of Poseidon, a bull from the sea.

  There were men down there. As I ran, they were among the horses, killing them with cleavers. One after another gave a last choked scream. Scarlet blood drenched everything; the struggling ceased. The men clustered, bending, over something beyond.

  They had cut him loose from the reins, when I got down there, and were pulling out the splinters of the chariot that had gone through his flesh like spears. He lay in ruin, like the horses; a splendid creature broken everywhere, torn and muddied, flayed on the rocks and sand. But the beasts were quiet; dead meat, out of their pain; while he groaned, and moved. In his blood-wet face his eyes were open, and looked in mine.

  The men called out to me, telling me who he was. They took me for some passing wayfarer, seeing me on foot, miry and bruised; and shouted the news at me all together, as shocked men do. They had been working in the fields above; their farm had stood through the shock, and they had watched it all. They told how they had seen him on the road, driving from Troizen; how his horses had bolted at the earthquake, yet somehow he had got them in hand. But the water had come up, with the bull upon it, floundering out clear in the way. And then … they pointed to the hacked-off reins, still lashed round his middle in the double-hitch of the charioteer.

  He put one hand to the ground, and tried to lift himself, and sank back with a cry; his back was broken. Someone said, “He is gone”; but his eyes opened again. Two of the men were arguing what farm the bull had come from, and who had the right to keep it now; another said it should be offered to Poseidon, or he would be angry and strike again. But the man who had cut the reins away said to me, “Look, friend; bad news is always best brought by a stranger. Will you go up to Troizen, and tell the King?”

  I said, “I am Theseus. I am his father.”

  They stared gaping, and knuckling their brows; they could not keep their eyes from running over me, a dirty unkempt man, haggard and stammering, whose face they had scarcely glanced at, one of themselves. I sent them to fetch a hurdle; one offered me his garment to stop the blood with; then we two were alone.

  He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and from within. I knew he was past all help; yet I would not know it, and bent above him doing useless things. As I worked I spoke, telling him I knew everything, begging him for a sign. His eyes were empty. But after a while they changed; and his lips moved. He spoke to me. He did not know me; but dying men are glad of company. He said, “Not even the gods are just!”

  He was quiet a long time then. I laid my hand on his head, and kissed him, and tried again to be understood. I could not tell if he heard. For a moment his eyes half wakened; they stared straight upward, in a bitter loneliness; then they grew blank again. His blood soaked through the rags and his face grew whiter. At last came the men with the hurdle. As we shifted him onto it he cried aloud; but there was no telling if his mind was clear. I helped them carry him, till two more men came; they had been killing the bull, since they could not move it. We got him up to the road, and the men said, “Shall we take him to the house, sir? Or on to Troizen?”

  I heard a breath from him. His hand moved. I touched it and said, “No. To Epidauros.” Then his fingers closed on mine.

  The clouds had parted. Over the sea they still looked dark; but there was a patch of blue above the mountains. All the birds were singing, loudly, as they do after an earthquake, claiming their boundaries, or glad to be alive. Someone had gone ahead to get more bearers; he was too heavy for one set to carry far. He was still, and I hoped that he felt nothing; but when the litter jolted once, I saw his teeth clench with pain.

  The men were tired, and the others had not come yet. There was a clump of plane trees by the road, and a trickle of water, a little winter stream. The ground was flat there; and I said to the bearers, “Rest awhile.”

  One of them had his bronze cup tied in his belt; he filled it from the stream, and I moistened the boy’s mouth, for his lips were dry. His eyes had been shut; but now he opened them and looked upward, where the bare branches stood against the blue, with a few golden leaves. His hand touched my wrist and he whispered, “Listen!”

  There was a lark above. A little tinkle came from the stream. And up the hill was a herdboy piping, who, when the earthquake struck, had had no more to lose than the birds.

  “Listen,” he murmured, smiling. “Epidauros!”

  I looked at him. It was clear by now he would never get there alive; so I answered, “Yes.”

  He shut his eyes again. His breathing was so quiet that I could not hear it, and thought it was the end. The men withdrew a little way; and I knelt beside him, covering my face. Then he said, “Father.”

  “Yes?” I leaned down; I could tell, from the way he forced it out, he knew that he was going. “Forgive me your blood,” I said. “Though the gods will not, nor I myself, yet do you forgive it.”

  “Father,” he murmured, “I am sorry I was angry. All this had to be. Because …” He looked at me, to say he had not strength to finish, begging my pardon. I saw that his eyes were going blind. His head rolled back, facing the blue sky; like the sky it grew calm and clear. “I have had a true dream,” he said. “I shall die a well man now.” His fingers pressed my hand; so cold, it was as if he spoke to me from beyond the River. “Father … offer Asklepios a cock for me … do not forget.”

  I said, “I will remember. Is there anything else?”

  He made no answer. Soon his lips parted; his soul went forth in a sigh, and I closed his eyes.

  Presently came some of the doctor-priests from Epidauros, who had heard the news. They brought on his body to the sanctuary, though, as everyone knows, it is unlawful for a corpse to lie there. They said they could not be sure that he was dead; talking across me with their eyes, as doctors do. He was very dear to them. Even when his corpse was growing cold, they warmed him and would not own it; and I have been told that, all their arts having failed, they turned to some old magic of the Shore Folk, which their law forbade them, and which had not been practiced for a hundred years. The Priest-King died soon after, suddenly, struck down as he worked, the swift death of Apollo; and it was said that the god was angry with him, for trying to raise the dead.

  I cannot tell; for I went away leaving the body with them. I knew that he was dead, and no god would raise him. For me there was work in Troizen waiting.

  The wailing of wom
en met me; by this time, the news had been pieced together, and all was known. My mother was leading them, weeping out his praises as the words came to her, which later she would shape into the funeral chant. She broke off her crying to come and meet me. The rest all covered their eyes with their hair.

  She had nothing to say, having foreseen the curse so long before; so she embraced me with the common words of any mother. I kissed her—for he had been like her youngest son—and said we would talk later. Then I asked for my wife.

  “The women were angry,” my mother answered. “I warned her of it; not for her sake, but for fear of something unseemly. I suppose she is in her room.”

  I went up through the empty Palace. Those who saw me far off turned quickly out of my way; but there were few to see. An old servant, whom I ran into at a corner, said that King Pittheus was sleeping; no one had dared yet bring him the news. I paused for a moment; but I had already enough to do. Better he had died yesterday. But they say that the end of man’s life is sorrow.

  As I climbed the stairs, I thought of the tale I had heard from Phaedra, how Hippolytos had sworn to bring back the old religion, what he had said. A long tale for a woman to remember who has just been ravished in the fields. And yet, a long one to make up in a moment, even under the spur of fear. I saw it now. Well she might remember, every word! Many a night she must have lain with those words in mind, trying them this way and that, getting them perfect, as the harpers do: getting them ready. They had been her words to him.

  I came to her room, and knocked at the outer door. None answered. I went into mine, and tried the door between. That was locked too. I called to her to open; silence still. I listened, and felt that the silence breathed. The outer door was strong, but this one was light. It did not take long to force it.

  The room was empty. Then I looked again, and saw a shudder in a press of clothes. I dragged at them, and pulled her out. She cringed and crawled about me, clasping my knees, snivelling and praying. Like a slave, I thought; like a lying slave; the daughter of a thousand years of kings. Her throat was still marked from his fingers. I took her by it, to push her off me. Till I saw her eyes, and their expectation, I don’t think I knew what I meant to do. But she showed me her own deserving.

  She died hard. When I thought it was long over, and let go, she started to move again. At last I let her fall; she lay still then, one bundle more in the tumble of clothes from the press, which smelled of Crete.

  And then I thought, “Will her lies live after her? There are always men glad to think the worst of the best. She should have been made to bear witness first before the people. I have failed him once again.”

  Then I said aloud, “By Zeus, she shall speak for him, even now! She shall make good my son’s honor, living or dead.”

  There was ink and paper in the room. I can write the Cretan hand; I wrote it small, like a woman. Here in Troizen, that would be enough.

  “I slandered Hippolytos, to cover my own shame. I asked, and he refused. I can bear my life no longer.”

  This letter I bound into her hand, with a ribbon from among the clothes. As I did it, I saw that the inner curve of her arm was white and tender, her breast round, firm and fair. I remembered his heavy eyes at morning, his day-long wanderings, coming home dead tired. Had he been tempted? What if he had; it is the hard fight earns the garland. Well, he was avenged.

  I made a noose from a girdle, and tied it to a sheet knotted round a beam. When she was hanging, I overturned the chair that I had stood on, under her feet. Then I went down, to show the broken door and what I had found behind it.

  All over Troizen, his name is held in honor. It is growing holy; each year the maidens offer at his tomb, and clip their hair. I did for him what I could. Maybe it was not what he would have asked for, if he could have spoken. But a man can only give what he has, being what he is.

  Skyros

  I

  THESE THINGS ALL STAND as clear in my mind as yesterday. It is yesterday that I forget.

  Was it after one summer, or two, or three, that the god’s hand struck me? I know I was at sea with Pirithoos (for a man must be somewhere, while he walks under the sun) and seeing Melian pirates sailing hull-down with loot, we bore down on them to take the prize. I remember, I think, the sight of them nearing. Then I felt giddy, and my eyes went black; and when I opened them, it was night. I was on a pallet, in a peasant’s house; there were women chattering, and two of my men leaned over me, calling the rest to witness that they had said I was alive, and look! my eyes were open.

  They all asked me how I did. But when I tried to answer, the half of my mouth felt numb, and my speech slurred like a drunkard’s; and when I moved, only my right side answered me. I reached the right hand over, to feel the left; the right seemed to touch the hand of a corpse, and the left felt nothing.

  My men told me that before the ships engaged, as I gave the war-cry, I had fallen down like the dead. It was too late to avoid the battle. It had been bitter, with so many killed that in the end neither had claimed the victory, but the ships that were left had limped away. When I asked after Pirithoos, they said his ship had been rammed, and sunk with all hands. This I heard, as one hears things without meaning.

  All that were left of my crew were here in the hut with me, a scant dozen. The rest were killed or drowned. They had been laying my body out, to wrap it up and bring it home for burial, and had begun to fold the sail about me, when they saw I was still alive. When they sought for my wound they could find nothing; I had fallen, they said, before the weapons began to fly.

  The peasant women spooned milk into my mouth and wiped my face. Then I told them all to go, and lay for a long while, thinking.

  Perhaps it was the Mother who had struck me down. I had stolen two of her daughters out of her shrines, and tamed her worship at Eleusis. All those who follow the old religion, or fear it still, say that it was the Mother. Or it may have been Apollo; for I was struck without pain, as men are killed by his gentle arrows; and as I was only half to blame for his good servant’s death, he left me half alive. But I have come to think it was Poseidon Earth-Shaker, because I turned his blessing into a curse. I think so; and I have good cause.

  I felt no pain in my body, and little yet in mind. At first, I scarcely reproached the gods that I was not dead. Yet I, who had forgotten, or ceased to care, that I was a man no longer, remembered I was a king. Often I had said to myself that I ought not to die before my heir reached manhood. I had gone roving just the same, saying, “If it is fated, it will come.” Yet I had never thought to be dead and living.

  When one of my men came back, I asked him if the people here knew who I was. He said no, only that I was the captain; they were ignorant folk, having only the Shore Folk speech, and that uncouthly. I told him to leave it so.

  There is a little isle of mine, northward of Crete, with open sea around it. Pirithoos and I used to put in there, to mend our ships and get water, and sometimes to hide our loot till we could bring it home. We had a little stronghold and a house within it, looked after by one or two old girls of ours we still had a kindness for, though they were getting on.

  Here, when I could be moved, I bade them bring me; and here I lay all day, or sat in the chair that I was carried to, looking at a little wall with a fig tree in it, and a gateway, and a square of sea. The women fed me, and kept me clean, and tended me like a baby. Hour after hour I sat, watching a bird pecking a fig, or a passing sail, and thinking how I could keep my enemies in fear of me till the time was ripe to die. Yes; while the child waited for his nurse to bring the posset or the sponge, the King still thought. Him the god’s stroke did not destroy. The warrior, the lover, the wrestler, the singer, he has outlived them all. He is Theseus, it seems.

  There was gold on the island, as I have said, and a boat that the men could handle. I sent them out for stores, and wondered if I would ever see them more; why should men stand by me, whom the gods had all forsaken? But they came back, stocked up for winter. For fou
r long years, my life has been in their hands. There was one, I am told, who said among his friends, “Let us take the gold, and ask him where the rest is; it is easy to make a sick man talk. Then we can kill him, and sell the news to Idomeneus, in Crete.” I learned this from them, when they got tired at last of hearing me ask where the man had got to. Later they showed me his grave.

  When I had thought what best to do, I sent the chanty-man, who was a good harper and quick-thinking, back to Athens with a letter from me, sealed with my seal. It said I had had omens, and an oracle, to go down into a secret shrine below the earth, and be purified by Mother Dia, whom I had offended. I would come back full of luck, and destroy my enemies; meantime my council must govern and uphold my laws, and have a good account to render me after. I told the man to go a long way round, changing ships often, and coming to Athens from the north. He was not to know the shrine where I was being purified, because I had parted from him on the way; if they pressed him, he had last seen me in Epiros. There are many caves in the mountains there, which are said to go down into the land of Hades. So he went off; he did his work well, and I made it good to him. None of those eleven men need ever want, nor their sons’ sons.

  It was no matter, I thought, whether the Athenians swallowed my tale whole. If they thought I had gone off for my own reasons, and would come back in my own time, it was enough.

  The girls nursed me kindly. They had good hearts, as I had known when I gave them this quiet harbor to grow old in, not thinking I would need it too. They fetched the ancient wise-woman of the island, who came every day to rub my deadened side with oil and wine, saying the flesh would mortify without it. She knew old tales of the Shore Folk, going back to the time of the Titans, and the beginnings of men on earth; and like a child I would never let her go without a story. I had not been used to sit still, except while I thought what to do next. Sometimes it seemed the days would never end; and when night came, I would lie watching the stars, to count the hours till morning.