Authors: Mary Renault
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 fashion 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."
This did me a good turn. For Pylas, being a gentleman and fearing I had heard, asked me to relate how I killed Skiron. It was half my work done for me.
After the songs had begun again, we were still speaking of the Isthmus. I said, "I fought my way through alive, and that's one man's work there. But by now someone else is working Skiron's bit of road. So it will be, till the place is swept clean end to end. Not one man's work, nor one kingdom's either." The singing was loud; the wine had just been round again. I said, "Two might do it."
I saw his eyes shine. But he was shrewd, and had lived ten good years longer in the world than I. "That would be a war! But would it tempt the Eleusinians? What about their sea trade, if the road were open?" I shook my head; I had given this thought. "The road runs through Eleusis too. It would bring them trade when winter closes the seaways. Besides," I said smiling, "their cattle might fatten in peace, if the Megarians kept theirs."
He laughed. I saw he was listening man to man. But I would soon lose him, if I sounded too simple or too rash. I said, "Your father would need to treat with Xanthos, the Queen's brother, not with me. But everyone knows in Eleusis that he fights for what he can carry away. Tell him the robbers' holds are stuffed with booty. That will make him listen."
Pylas passed me his drinking horn. Presently he said, "You have thought this out well, Theseus. Tell me, how old are you?" I said, "Nineteen." I almost believed it myself by now. He looked at me, and began laughing into his beard. "What have they done in Eleusis? They set traps for deer and got a leopard. Don't they know it yet? Tell me, lad, why are you doing this? What will it be to you, this time next year?"
"When you die, Pylas," I said, "they will make a tomb for you, lined with dressed stone. They will put your ring on your finger and your sword in your hands; your best spear they will give you, and your offering cup, and the cup you drink from in Hall. After a hundred years, when the ring lies loose on bone, old men will say to their grandsons, 'That is the tomb of Pylas son of Nisos, and these were his deeds,' And the child will tell his grandson, who will tell his. But in Eleusis dead kings are dug into the fields like horse dung, and have no names. If I don't write my epitaph, who will?"
He nodded, and said, "That is a good reason." But still he looked at me, and I knew what he was going to say.
"Theseus, I have lived near thirty years hard by Eleusis. I know how a man looks who foreknows his end. It is in the blood of the Earthlings; they go to it like birds before whose eyes the snake is dancing. But if she dances for the leopard, the leopard jumps first."
He was shrewd; I should have been a fool to lie to him. I said, "Where I come from, it is the consent that binds a man." Then I said, "But I might meet it in battle. Who wants to live on without a name?"
"Not you, that is clear. But with leaven like you working in the lump, the custom might alter in Eleusis. There are tales of such things, in our fathers' days."
His words waked thoughts that had lain sleeping in my heart. Now after my victory new things seemed possible, and I was too young to hide it. As I looked into the core of the fire he said, "Yes, and we might find you a restless neighbor."
I liked his frankness. We understood each other. "This is your father's ox we are eating," I said, "and my prize. I don't know which is host or guest, but we are hearth-friends either way." He scanned my face with one of his sharp bright looks; then he took my hand and gripped it.
The fire crumbled; the ashes grew red and gray with a few sparks of gold; the dogs mumbled their bones full-bellied. As it grew quiet, we leaned and fell to whispering; I could see more than one of my Minyans lying awake to watch if he would make love to me. We agreed together to press for war that autumn rather than wait for spring; like me, he was one to decide on a thing and do it. "Ask your father," I said, "to say he has heard that Kerkyon knows his way across the Isthmus. My young men won't like to be a rear guard." He laughed and promised. Then we slept; I on my face, because my back was sore. Next morning when we all set off home, he gave me his gold-rimmed cup as a guest gift. The Companions stared, and wondered if they had stayed awake long enough.