The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  One can be, as I am, a man for women, yet not dislike having friends in a strange land, or a loyal Guard. If they had been tiresome or importunate I might have wondered, being young, how I was going to deal with it; but this time, for once, there was something in being King. “Well,” I said to them, “even kings have names where I come from. Mine is Theseus.” So they took to using it, though it was clean against the custom.

  If I had fancied one of them, there would have been no end to bloodshed and intrigue; one heard stories of former years. As it was, it was only a matter of taking care. A few meant what they said; with others it was a fashion; they had friends of their own or were in love with girls, usually with girls their mothers would not let them marry. Troubles like this they brought to me, and when I could I urged their causes with the Queen. But it hurts a man’s pride, to coax a woman when he has no power to do more. Just as when I was a boy, I began to find wild ways of proving myself to myself. I would have wished for war; but westward were the Megarians, my father’s hearth-friends and kindred; and eastward was my father.

  I heard a good deal about the cattle wars with Megara; some of my young men were old enough to have been in the last themselves. King Nisos, they said, was too old to fight, but his son Pylas could fight for two. I learned, from hints here and there, that the Queen’s brother was not much loved by his men. No one questioned his courage; but he was thought overbearing, and greedy with the spoil. There was a proverb among them, “Xanthos’ share.”

  My grandfather had said to me, “Take care as you pass through Megara not to give offense, or get into a brawl. King Nisos is the only sure ally your father has, your grandmother’s brother. King Pandion fled there from Athens once during the wars for the kingdom; your father himself was born there.” As autumn drew on, these words stuck in my mind. It is a time for raids, before winter closes the ways. Once in the field, I thought, it would be a poor thing if I did not single this Pylas out for combat; people might well, then, call me Boy. Yet whether I killed him or he killed me, my father stood to lose by it. I began to dread this war as much as a man might who was scared of fighting.

  Lying at dawn in the painted bedchamber, thinking my own thoughts before the white bird whistled at the sun, I saw it was time I slipped off to Athens. But how to do it? It would have been easier for a slave than for the King. I was always among people: dancing at festivals, parading at the sacrifice (though I never offered it); everywhere I went the Guard went with me; and at night I had only to move as far as the edge of the bed, for the Queen to wake. There were the hunting trips in the hills; but I knew the Companions, thinking I was lying hurt somewhere, would set the dogs to find me. Besides, they would be punished for losing me; killed, for all I knew; and I had begun to feel answerable for them. Being with them so much, I could not help it.

  Then, supposing I did get away, I should still get to my father’s court a beggarly fugitive, perhaps with the Queen threatening war. A fine fool I should look, in flight from a woman. I had wanted to go to him a man who has been heard of. I had wanted him to say, before he knew me, “I wish I had such a son.”

  “No!” I thought. “By Ever-Living Zeus! I have time before me: autumn, winter, and spring. If I can’t get openly to Athens with my name running before me, I deserve to stay in Eleusis, and accept the moira of her kings.”

  I looked about me, and listened, and thought. I considered the Megarians, and Pylas, Nisos’ son, who had the name of a warrior. There was only one way to avoid fighting him and keep my standing: somehow, and soon, we must make friends. I thought of this and that; but still I could not see my way to it.

  Meantime, the night still had its sweetness; the harper’s song at supper-time seemed always a verse too long. But I no longer asked myself how I could ever leave her.

  I never spoke to her of business when anyone was listening, lest she should shame me with slight answers; but if I tried it at night, she would pet me like a child. At home, when I was only ten, my grandfather used to make me sit quiet while he gave judgment, and question me after to see what I had taken in. Here, I had even litigants coming to me with bribes to get them her ear, as if I were some concubine. Of course they were women, so I could not hit them in the teeth.

  I often saw her children about the Palace. There were only five, though she had married ten kings. By the last she had had none; and I hoped, as any man will, that she would take by me. But sometimes I heard the nurses talking, as if these children were some favor she had shown their fathers; as if she chose which kings she would bear to. So I never asked her. I knew, if I ever learned that she thought me not worth breeding from, I should be too angry to answer for myself.

  Then came a day when she heard I had been climbing after leopard. You might have thought, from the way she rated me, I had been caught up an apple tree in my first pair of breeches. I was shocked dumb. My own mother, who remembered me a babe as naked as a worm, would not have said such things. Afterwards I thought of answers, but too late. That night in bed I turned away from her, thinking that here was something she was not master of. But here too, in the end, she had the better of me, for she understood these matters. Next morning my eyes opened before cocklight, and I lay awake ashamed. I saw I should have to do something to get my standing back. I did not mean to be a man all night and a child all day, for any woman’s pleasure.

  I would hunt again, I thought; and this time it should be something big. Among the mountain herdboys I made it known that news of game would find me grateful. Before long, one came asking for me, all on tiptoe. “Kerkyon,” he said, “the great she-boar, Phaia, is in the border hills. She has come over from Megara, and has a den on Broken Mountain. They say she has a litter there.”

  He went on to tell me of her; I had heard something already. She was said by the Megarians to have a javelin-head lodged in her side, which made her hate men; she would rush out from covert when no one hunted her, and kill the peasants for sport. There were five men to her count already.

  This was just the kind of quarry I had been looking for. I gave the lad a reward that made him jump for joy. “The Good Goddess do as much for you, Kerkyon. King Nisos has put a price upon the beast; a tripod and an ox.”

  This gave me a new thought. I called him back as he was going. “Does Pylas, King Nisos’ son, hunt about the border?” The boy said, “He will, sir, for sure, now she is there; he is always after her.” “Tell me,” I said, “if he is seen.”

  He brought word a few days later. I beckoned the Guard about me, and said to them, “I have news of a brave beast in the hills.”

  At this the wildest of them, a dark youth called Amyntor, gave a whoop and swallowed it. I heard someone’s voice claiming a bet. Of course they knew I had had my orders. There is nowhere for gossip like a palace of women, where it is common knowledge by noonday how many times you embraced your wife last night. They had all been waiting to see what I would do. All Eleusinians love strong happenings more than wine.

  “Pylas of Megara and his friends,” I said, “think they can bay the she-boar of Krommyon. I don’t think we should let that pass, when she’s on our border.”

  Their eyes grew wide. I saw them nudging and whispering, and was rather surprised; I had not found them easily frightened. Then one said aloud, “A she-pig!”

  At this I remembered; these beasts are sacred in Eleusis. It did not please me; from the moment I had heard of Phaia, my heart had been set on her. But when I thought again, I saw it might work out for the best. “Be easy,” I said. “She will not die in Eleusis. Those hills are No Man’s Land. Nor will her blood be on you; boar are lawful killing for Hellenes, and I shall kill her.”

  They stared at me. I could see they thought I was mad; and indeed I hardly knew myself why I was so resolved.

  “Come,” I said, “we must be off before the sun is high. Pylas has the start of us.” I was afraid one of them might get fainthearted and tell. If I kept them together, they would egg each other on. It had become a fashio
n with them to be Hellene.

  We started out when the Queen was giving audience. No one noticed. I knew better by now than to keep our spears and tackle in Eleusis. They were in a cave on a mountain farm. Up there we rested from our long climb, and the herdboy’s brother, who had been watching the quarry, gave us his news. Pylas’ party had bayed Phaia already; but she had broken through them, after killing two dogs and laying a man’s leg open. Rain had laid the scent; and the boy, to keep her for us, had sent the Megarians on a fool’s chase round the hill. She was still where she had gone to ground.

  Rain hung about the hills; under dark-blue clouds the mountainside looked black and lowering. Down beyond it, far below and away, lay the plain and shore of Eleusis washed with pale sun. It was as if the dark came with us. One of the Guard, who was small and swarthy and Minyan all through, said, “Perhaps the Goddess is angry.”

  I looked at the dark scrub and tumbled rocks, under the brooding clouds, and shivered. The Mother at Eleusis is not like the Mother at Troizen. But I was a Hellene; I had pledged myself before all my men; if I turned back now I would be better dead. “The Lady shall have her share,” I said, “along with Apollo.” As I named the god, a patch of sun swept across the hillside.

  In a tumble of great rocks from an old slide, leaning together with young trees growing in them, was the she-boar’s lair.

  We put up the nets as best we could. They were not very well staked, because there was rock under the earth. When they were in place, we slipped the dogs; they were mad to go, but not so eager to stay. They began to tumble out from the rocks, baying and belling. More came; and in their midst what seemed a great black boulder spewed out of the mountain. Then I saw it was alive.

  I had thought, “Well, a boar-sow can only be so big.” I was well paid for being cocksure. The males we had hunted at home were piglings to her. She was like something left from the world of Titans and earthborn giants, living on in a lonely cleft of the hills. Only she was not old. The great curved tusks in her long black mask looked white and fresh, where they were not bloody. I had thought too slightly of the Megarians; they had not been afraid for nothing.

  “What have I got myself into?” I thought. “Death in front of me, and shame behind. Death that way too, if my own men despise me.” I heard their voices as they saw her better. They were scared; they took her size for a portent.

  She was in the nets now, wallowing and heaving. I started forward to take my one good chance. Next instant the stakes pulled out of the ground, and she came on dragging the whole tangle, full of dogs, behind her. If I did not stop her now, she would be in among the Companions. But I could never stop her. I had not got the weight.

  There was a tall rock near by, with a flat side facing toward her. It showed me my last hope. She was at pause, confused by the nets about her. They would slow her charge, with luck. I vaulted over on my spear, and set my back against the rock, and levelled the spear point. The movement drew her eye; she came straight at me.

  She stumbled once on the way. Even so, it took all my strength to check her rush just enough, and keep my spear from breaking.

  It entered her breast just below the shoulder. I had set its butt to the stone behind me. It was her own might, not mine, that drove it into her. But it was I who had to hold on.

  She hated men. As she thrust and jerked and squealed, I knew it was not her own life she fought for; it was mine. Fixed by my slender shaft to this huge force of earth, I felt as light as grass; I was beaten and bruised upon the rock behind me, as if the very mountain were trying to kill me on her breast like a pricking gnat. All the time I was waiting for the spear to crack. Then when I was braced to the thrust she pulled instead, so that my arm nearly sprang from its socket. I knew I was nearly done; and then she thrust again. It must have changed the line of the spear head. One more great writhe and wallow she gave, that ground the spear butt upon the rock; but it was her death-throe.

  I stood and panted, too spent at first to feel or know anything. When I leaned on the rock, my blood stuck to it like birdlime. Then, it seemed from far away, I heard the cheers of the Companions; and, though my feet would hardly hold me up, my life quickened within me. I felt like a man who has done what a god willed for him; free and shining; and full of luck.

  The Companions rushed forward. Forgetting themselves, they shouted, “Boy! Boy!” and tossed me in the air. “Boy” I minded no longer; but my grazes hurt. Soon seeing the blood, they put me down, and shouted to each other for oil, which no one had brought, and blamed each other and bickered. I said, “Sow’s fat will do,” but a man on the hillside just above said, “I have some oil. You are welcome.”

  I saw a Hellene warrior, about twenty-eight years old. His yellow hair was plaited and clubbed for hunting; his beard was trimmed and his upper lip shaved clean, and he had light-gray eyes, bright and quick. Behind him followed a youth with boar-spears, and a troop of hunters. I thanked him, and asked him for form’s sake if he was Pylas son of Nisos, though I knew he was. It was all over him.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have robbed me of my quarry, lad, but the sight was cheap at the price. I think you are this year’s Kerkyon, who came by way of the Isthmus.”

  I told him yes, and he looked half sorry to hear it, which already seemed strange after Eleusis. As for his calling me lad, one cannot in reason expect the heir of a Hellene kingdom to treat a year-king like royalty.

  “Yes,” I said. “I am Kerkyon, but my name is Theseus. I am a Hellene.”

  “So it seems,” he said, looking at the she-boar; and called his spear-bearer to oil my back. I was glad to find him a gentleman, seeing he was my cousin.

  Meantime there was a crowd round the quarry, and I could hear some of my boys taunting the Megarians. This could make trouble in no time, between men lately at war. I signed to them to stop, but they were too pleased with themselves. Just as I was going over, Pylas said, “You have a prize to claim from my father; a tripod and an ox.”

  In all the to-do I had even forgotten this, though it was what I had been after. Nothing could have been better. “Listen!” I called. “Here’s a man who doesn’t know what meanness is. Though he missed the kill, he is reminding us to claim the prize.” They sobered down then, ashamed to keep it up. I said, “The ox shall be our victory feast, for the quarry belongs to the Lady and to Apollo. We will roast it here, and ask these warriors to eat it with us.” Pylas looked like a man who could take a joke, so I said to him apart, “Pig-meat is forbidden them; but an ox from Megara always eats sweet.” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. Somewhere in the rocks there were piglings squeaking. “By Zeus!” I said, “I forgot her litter. If your father cares for sucking pig, take him these with my greetings.” He sent a man in among the rocks. The litter was four sows and seven boars; so we had saved the people of those parts some trouble.

  They set about skinning the sow. Afterwards I had a good war helm made of her skin and teeth; the leather worked well, pliant and strong. Before the skinning was done, Pylas’ men came back with the prize. They brought wood too for the roasting, and to burn the sacrifice. I saw him stare when my Minyans offered to Apollo; but that was a custom of the Guard these days. They thought well of a god who protects men from the wrath of goddesses, and can hold off the Daughters of Night. I had never brought them to think much of Poseidon. In Eleusis the Mother’s husbands, like the Queen’s, are of small account.

  All this had brought us on to the time when shadows lengthen. The clouds had cleared, and a sunlight like golden wine lay on the mountains. I said to Pylas, “One can’t travel these hills in darkness; yet what a pity to throw down such a feast as this like men upon the march. Why not find a hollow out of the wind, and some brush to sleep on? Then we can sing and tell tales till midnight.”

  His bright gray eyes opened wide. Then he looked as if he was going to laugh. But he wiped it from his face, and said courteously that nothing could be better. I turned to my troop; and saw them all in a huddle. Bias came
up and muttered in my ear. “Theseus. Isn’t that going too far?” “How so?” I said. He whispered, “Surely you know the King never sleeps out.”

  I had not given it a thought, I had been so pleased to be living again like a man among men. For nothing on earth would I excuse myself now to Pylas, and be the mock of his Hellenes. “There is a first time,” I said, “for everything.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t you see? As it is you have put your life in hazard, after Madam said not. And you have killed a she-pig. And now, if you sleep out, she will think you’re with a woman.”

  He meant well, but it had gone far enough. “Those are things for man and wife to settle between them. You have spoken, Bias, and I have listened. Now go and help the others.”

  The spits were fixed, the tinder kindled. Evening fell, and the hollow was filled with firelight as an offering bowl with wine. Wine indeed was all we lacked; when lo, men came up from a village below, with a whole skin of it, to thank us for killing Phaia. They stared at the trophy, and I thought, “By dark the news will be in Eleusis. Well, in for a calf, in for a cow.”

  The meat was done, and our teeth were sharp for it. Pylas shared with me his cup of horn rimmed with gold; the rest tipped the wineskin. Everyone sang, Hellenes and Minyans picking up each other’s refrains. My lads were first constrained, then wild; Hellenes for tonight, but in awe of the morrow. I had thoughts of it myself.

  As the noise grew loud, Pylas and I moved up together. It was a time for talk. For this I had killed Phaia. Yet I felt my youth more now than when she was on my spear. Often at Troizen I had helped my grandfather entertain such men. I had made myself civil in Hall; told the harper what to compliment them on, or sung to them myself; taken them hunting, to see they got good sport without being killed; and seen them off with their guest gifts, after they came down from the upper room with their business over. I had been a lad on the fringe of men’s affairs. While I was thinking this, I heard a Megarian mutter, “As the Queen gets older, the kings get younger. Now here is one with no beard.”