The Leithen Stories

by John Buchan

  It was about this danger that he was still undecided. You see, he had not, like me, seen the people of the island, felt the strain of their expectancy, or looked on the secret spaces of the Dancing Floor. He had come out of the storm to hear a tale told in the fog and darkness by an excited woman. That was all – that and the hideous rooms at which he had had a passing glance. The atmosphere of the place, which I had found so unnerving, had not yet begun to affect him.

  ‘My fellow will come back,’ he said, after scanning the empty seas. ‘He has his faults, but he is plucky and faithful.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ the girl said. ‘He would be one against a thousand. He may be as brave as a lion, but they won’t let him anchor, and if they did they would never let you and me join him. I have told you we are prisoners – close prisoners.’

  ‘You must tell me a great deal more. You see, you can’t refuse my help now, for we are in the same boat. Do you mind if we go back to where we breakfasted, for I left my pipe there.’

  She turned without a word and led him back to her sitting-room, passing a woebegone Elise who, with her arms full of clothes, was told that her services were now needless. The windows of the room looked on a garden which had been suffered to run wild but which still showed a wealth of spring blossom. Beyond was a shallow terrace and then the darkness of trees. A man’s head seemed to move behind a cypress hedge. The girl nodded towards it. ‘One of my gaolers,’ she said.

  She stood looking out of the window with her eyes averted from Vernon and seemed to be forcing herself to speak.

  ‘You have guessed right about my family,’ she said. ‘And about this house. I am cleaning it slowly – I must do it myself. Elise and I, for I do not want strangers to know … This room was as bad as the other two till I white-washed the walls. The old furniture I am storing till I have time to destroy it. I think I will burn it, for it has hideous associations for me. I would have had the whole house in order this spring if my foolish people had not lost their heads.’

  A ‘tawdry girl’, that was how Vernon had spoken of her to me. He withdrew the word now. ‘Tawdry’ was the last adjective he would use about this strange child, fighting alone to get rid of a burden of ancient evil. He had thought her a modish, artificial being, a moth hatched out of the latest freak of fashion. Now she seemed to him a thousand years removed from the feverish world which he had thought her natural setting. Her appeal was her extreme candour and simplicity, her utter, savage, unconsidering courage.

  ‘Let us take the family for granted,’ Vernon said gently. ‘I can’t expect you to talk about that. I assume that there was that in your predecessor’s doings which gave these islanders a legitimate grievance. What I want to know is what they are up to now. Tell me very carefully everything that has happened since you came here a week ago.’

  She had little to tell him. She had been allowed to enter the House by the ordinary road from the village, and after that the gates had been barred. When she had attempted to go for a walk she had been turned back by men with rifles – she did not tell Vernon how the rifles had been procured. The hillmen had joined with the people of the coast – you could always tell a hillman by his dress – though the two used to be hereditary enemies. That made her angry and also uneasy; so did the curious methodical ways of the siege. They were not attempting to enter the House – she doubted if any one of them would dare to cross the threshold – they were only there to prevent her leaving it. She herself, not the looting of the House, must be their object. Mitri was permitted to go to the village, but he did not go often, for he came back terrified and could not or would not explain his terrors. No communication had been held with the watchers, and no message had come from them. She had tried repeatedly to find out their intentions, but the sentinels would not speak, and she could make nothing of Mitri. No, she was not allowed into the demesne. There were sentries there right up to the house wall – sentries night and day.

  Vernon asked her about supplies. She had brought a store with her which was not yet exhausted, but the people sent up food every morning. Mitri found it laid on the threshold of the main door. Curious food – barley cakes and honey and cheese and eggs and dried figs. She couldn’t imagine where they got it from, for the people had been starving in the winter. Milk, too – plenty of milk, which was another unexpected thing.

  Water – that was the oddest business of all. The House had a fine well in the stableyard on the east side. This had been sealed up and its use forbidden to Mitri. But morning and night buckets of fresh water were brought to the door – whence, she did not know. ‘It rather restricts our bathing arrangements,’ she said.

  She told the story lightly, with a ready laugh, as if she were once more mistress of herself. Mistress of her voice she certainly was, but she could not command her eyes. It was these that counteracted the debonair tones and kept tragedy in the atmosphere.

  Vernon, as I have said, had not the reason which I had for feeling the gravity of the business. But he was a scholar, and there were details in Koré’s account which startled him.

  ‘Tell me about the food again. Cheese and honey and barley cakes, dried figs and eggs – nothing more?’

  ‘Nothing more. And not a great deal of that. Not more than enough to feed one person for twenty-four hours. We have to supplement it from the stores we brought.’

  ‘I see … It is meant for you personally – not for your household. And the water? You don’t know what spring it comes from?’

  She shook her head. ‘There are many springs in Plakos. But why does our commissariat interest you?’

  ‘Because it reminds me of something I have read somewhere. Cheese and honey and barley cakes – that is ritual food. Sacramental, if you like. And the water. Probably brought from some sacred well. I don’t much like it. Tell me about the people here, Miss Arabin. Are they very backward and superstitious?’

  ‘I suppose you might call them that. They are a fine race to look at, and claim to be pure Greek – at least the coast folk. The hillmen are said to be mongrels, but they are handsome mongrels and fought bravely in the war. But I don’t know them well for I left when I was a child, and since my father died I have only seen the people of Kynaetho.’

  ‘Kynaetho?’ Vernon cried out sharply, for the word was like a bell to ring up the curtain of memory.

  ‘Yes, Kynaetho. That is the village at the gate.’

  Now he had the clue. Kynaetho was the place mentioned in the manuscript fragment which he had translated for me. It was at Kynaetho that the strange rite was performed of the Koré and the Kouros. The details were engraven on his memory, for they had profoundly impressed him and he had turned them over repeatedly in his mind. He had thought he had discovered the record of a new ritual form; rather it appeared that he had stumbled upon the living rite itself.

  ‘I begin – to understand,’ he said slowly. ‘I want you to let me speak to Mitri. Alone, if you please. I have done this work before in the war, and I can get more out of that kind of fellow if I am alone with him. Then I shall prospect the land.’

  He found Mitri in his lair in the ancient kitchen. With the old man there was no trouble, for when he found that his interlocutor spoke Greek fluently he overflowed in confidences.

  ‘They will burn this House,’ he said finally. ‘They have piled faggots on the north and east sides where the wind blows. And the time will be Easter eve.’

  ‘And your mistress?’

  Mitri shrugged his shoulders. ‘There is no hope for her, I tell you. She had a chance of flight and missed it, though I pled with her. She will burn with the House unless—’

  He looked at Vernon timidly, as if he feared to reveal something.

  ‘Unless—?’ said Vernon.

  ‘There is a rumour in Kynaetho of something else. In that accursed village they have preserved tales of the old days, and they say that on the night of Good Friday there will be panegyria on the Dancing Floor. There will be a race with torches, and he who wins
will be called King. To him it will fall to slay my mistress in order that the Ancient Ones may appear and bless the people.’

  ‘I see,’ said Vernon. ‘Do you believe in that rubbish?’

  Mitri crossed himself and called the Panagia to witness that he was a Christian and after God and the Saints loved his mistress.

  ‘That is well. I trust you, Mitri; and I will show you how you can save her. You are allowed to leave the House?’

  ‘Every second day only. I went yesterday, and cannot go again till tomorrow. I have a daughter married in the village, whom I am permitted to visit.’

  ‘Very well. We are still two days from Good Friday. Go down to the village tomorrow and find out all about the plans for Good Friday evening. Lie as much as you like. Say you hate your mistress and will desert her whenever you are bidden. Pretend you’re on the other side. Get their confidence … A madness has afflicted this island and you are the only sane Christian left in it. If these ruffians hurt your mistress, the Government – both in Athens and in London – will send soldiers and hang many. After that there will be no more Kynaetho. We have got to prevent the people making fools of themselves. Your mistress is English and I am English, and that is why I stay here. You do exactly as I tell you and we’ll win through.’

  It was essential to encourage Mitri, for the old man was patently torn between superstitious fear and fidelity to Koré and only a robust scepticism and a lively hope would enable him to keep his tail up and do his part. Vernon accordingly protested a confidence which he was very far from feeling. It was arranged that Mitri should go to Kynaetho next morning after breakfast and spend the day there.

  After that, guided by the old man, Vernon made a circuit of the House. From the top windows he was able to follow the lie of the land – the postern gates to the shore, the nest of stables and outbuildings on the east with access to the shallow glen running up from the jetty, the main entrance and the drive from Kynaetho, the wooded demesne ending at the cliffs, and the orchards and oliveyards between the cliffs and the causeway. The patrols came right up to the House wall, and on various sides Vernon had a glimpse of them. But he failed to get what he specially sought, a prospect of any part of the adjoining coastline beyond the little bay. He believed that his yacht was somewhere hidden there, out of sight of the peasants. He was convinced that the Epirote would obey orders and wait for him, and would not go one yard farther away than was strictly necessary. But he was at a loss to know how to find him, if he were penned up in this shuttered mausoleum.

  He returned to find Koré sewing by the window of the breakfast room. He entered quietly and had a momentary glimpse of her before she was conscious of his presence. She was looking straight before her with vacant eyes, her face in profile against the window, a figure of infinite appeal. Vernon had a moment of acute compunction. What he had once thought and spoken of this poor child seemed to him now to have been senseless brutality. He had called her tawdry and vulgar and shrill, he had thought her the ugly product of the ugly after-the-war world. But there she sat like a muse of meditation, as fine and delicate as a sword-blade. And she had a sword’s steel, too, for had she not faced unknown peril for a scruple?

  ‘What does Mitri say?’ she asked in a voice which had a forced briskness in it.

  ‘I shall know more tomorrow night, but I have learned something. You are safe for the better part of three days – till some time on Good Friday evening. That is one thing. The other is that your scheme of wearing down the hostility of your people has failed. Your islanders have gone stark mad. The business is far too solemn for me to speak smooth things. They have resurrected an old pagan rite of sacrifice. Sacrifice, do you understand? This House will be burned, and if they have their will you will die.’

  I was beginning to guess as much. I don’t want to die, for it means defeat. But I don’t think I am afraid to die. You see – life is rather difficult – and not very satisfactory. But tell me more.’

  Vernon gave her a sketch of the ritual of Kynaetho. ‘It was your mentioning the name that brought it back to me. I have always been interested in Greek religion, and by an amazing chance I came on this only a month or so ago. Leithen – the lawyer – you know him, I think – gave me a bit of medieval Greek manuscript to translate, and part of it had this rite.’

  ‘Leithen,’ she cried. ‘Sir Edward? Then he found it among the papers I lent him. Why didn’t he tell me about it?’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t have believed it. I wouldn’t a month ago. Perhaps he thought he could prevent me coming here. I think he did his best. I had to go off without saying goodbye to him, and he was my greatest friend.’

  ‘He happens to be also my closest friend. If you had known about this – this crazy ritual, would you have come?’ She smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’m very obstinate, and I can’t bear to be bullied. These people are trying to bully me … But of course I didn’t know how bad it was … And I didn’t know that I was going to land you in this mess. That is what weighs on my mind.’

  ‘But you didn’t invite me here. You told me to clear out.’

  ‘My servants invited you and therefore I am responsible … Oh, Colonel Milburne, you must understand what I feel. I haven’t had an easy life, for I seem to have been always fighting, but I didn’t mind it as long as it was my own fight. I felt I had to stick it out, for it was the penalty I paid for being an Arabin. But whatever paying was to be done I wanted to do it myself … Otherwise, don’t you see, it makes the guilt of my family so much heavier … And now I have let you in for it, and that is hell – simply hell!’

  Vernon had suddenly an emotion which he had never known before – the exhilaration with which he had for years anticipated the culmination of his dream, but different in kind, nobler, less self-regarding. He felt keyed up to any enterprise, and singularly confident. There was tenderness in his mood, too, which was a thing he had rarely felt – tenderness towards this gallant child.

  ‘Listen to me, Miss Arabin. I have two things to say to you. One is that I glory in being here. I wouldn’t be elsewhere for the world. It is a delight and a privilege. The other is that we are going to win out.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. We will find a way. I am as certain of it as that I am standing here. God doesn’t mean a thing like this to be a blind cul-de-sac.’

  ‘You believe in God? I wish I did. I think I only believe in the Devil.’

  ‘Then you believe in God. If evil is a living thing, good must be living as well – more indeed, or the world would smash … Look here, we’ve two days to put in together. There is nothing we can do for the present, so we must find some way to keep our nerves quiet. Let’s pretend we’re in an ordinary English country house and kept indoors by rain.’

  So the two of them made plans to pass the time, while the clear spring sunlight outside turned Vernon’s pretence into foolishness. They played piquet, and sometimes he read to her – chiefly Peter Beckford. The florid eighteenth-century prose, the tags of Augustan poetry, the high stilts, the gusto, carried their thoughts to the orderly world of home. I have no wish to speculate about the secrets of a friend, but I fancy that the slow hours spent together brought understanding. Koré must have told him things which she had kept back from me, for the near prospect of death breaks down many barriers. I think, too, that he may have told her the story of his boyish dream – he must have, for it bore directly on the case. With his sense of predestination he would draw from it a special confidence, and she would be made to share it. He had undergone a long preparation for something which had ended in mist, but the preparation might point to success in a great reality …

  Late the following afternoon old Mitri returned. Vernon saw him first alone, and got from him the details of the next evening’s ceremonial. There was to be a race among the young men on the Dancing Floor as soon as the moon rose, and the victor would be called the King. Some of the news which Mitri had
gathered was unexpected, some incomprehensible, but in the main it agreed with his own version. The victor would choose a victim – a male victim, clearly, for the female victim was already chosen. The two would enter the House, and on the next night – the eve of this grim Easter – the sacrifice would be accomplished. Beyond that Mitri could say nothing except that the people looked for a mighty miracle; but the manuscript had told what the miracle would be.

  ‘Who will be the runners?’ Vernon asked.

  ‘The fleetest among the young men, both of the village and the hills.’

  It was characteristic of Vernon’s fatalism that he had not troubled to make even the rudiments of a plan till he had heard Mitri’s tidings. Now the thing began to unfold itself. The next step at any rate was clearly ordained.

  ‘Will everybody be known to each other?’ he said.

  ‘Faith, no. Kynaetho till now has had few dealings with the hill folk, and the villagers in the hills are generally at strife with each other. Tomorrow night there will be many strangers, and no questions will be asked, for all will be allies in this devilry.’

  ‘Do I speak like a Greek?’

  ‘You speak like a Greek, but like one from another island.’

  ‘And I look like an islander?’

  Mitri grinned. ‘There are few as well-looking. But if your face were darkened, you would pass. There is a place, a little remote place in the hills, Akte by name, where the folk are said to have white skins like you, Signor.’

  ‘Well, attend, Mitri. I am a man from Akte who has been at the wars, and has just returned. That will account for my foreign speech.’

  ‘The Signor jests. He has a stout heart that can jest—’

  ‘I’m not jesting. I’m going to compete in the race tomorrow night. What is more, I’m going to win. I’ve been a bit of a runner in my time, and I’m in hard training.’

  A faint spark appeared in the old man’s eye.