Authors: Mary Renault
They were still hurling javelins, and ours could not be thrown; they had all been shortened, to smuggle into the Bull Court. Amyntor was by me. We grinned at each other, with the love of men in battle who know each other's minds. Each of us picked his man, and waited till a stone made him throw his shield up; then we ran in and grappled him round the middle. Each of us came away with shield and seven-foot spear.
We pressed up the wide stairway. Not far off I saw the red-haired Amazon, with Phoitios' arms and helmet. The guards upon the steps had locked their shields; but we bore them back and back, past the painted frieze of noble youths bearing gifts to Minos, up and back toward the hall above. Sometimes they would trip as they felt for the stair behind them, and pitch down into our hands. The steps grew slippery, but it was worth it to get their arms. I saw some at the back beginning to steal away, and raised a yell to put the rest in fear.
Suddenly, like water from a sink, they trickled back into the shadows. They had gone to hold a narrower pass. We gave a loud triumph call. Among all the voices, there was one that made me turn. It was Ariadne, borne high by the cheering Cretans, her hair dishevelled, her eyes wide, crying us on to the kill.
As we tore up the stairs, I looked at the red-haired Amazon, whose spear arm was dyed now with a crimson wound; and my heart hid from its own thought. For war frenzy is honorable in a warrior girl, who sheds her own blood and risks her own life beside you. I know, who once had such a comrade, no man better than I, how as a bright torch it lights the battle. But in a house-woman with soft hands, whose painted feet have scarcely felt rough ground beneath them, it is not the same.
"Well," I said to myself, "wrong has been done her, and worse wrong threatened. She has a right to vengeance. And it is a time to do, not think."
At the top of the stairs was a hall, and beyond that an entry where light showed through from a staircase open to the sky. But while they held the outer steps, those I thought had fled had been building a barricade, of fallen stones and chests and such heavy stuff. It looked good for a long while. They shouted at us from behind it, bidding us begone, and leave Minos to his sacred task.
I said to Amyntor, "Sacred task! There is only one thing the gods still want from him. If he were half a king, he would offer it himself, not leave us to take it." Then I looked through at the staircase, and remembered the place below and how the land lay there; and I had a thought.
"Kasos," I said, "keep up the attack here. Press them hard; don't let them think you are playing for time. There is a way I know; but it may be blocked by the earthquake. If I get in, you will hear my war call." I looked for the Mistress, and saw her safe among her guardian Cretans. Then I rallied the Cranes to me, and said, "Follow me."
I led them down the steps again, and along the courtyard, toward the northern block beyond which was the Bull Court. There was a little warren there of kitchens and still rooms and paint stores and blending rooms for oils and scents. There too was the old lamp room, with its trapdoor to the vaults.
The face of the block had fallen, and the upper floors had caught the fire; but below were thick walls and pillars, and at ground level one could get inside. I must own I did not like it. Poseidon's great rage might have deadened me for a lesser warning; and the place looked ready to fall if one only breathed. Before we entered, I prayed him for a sign if he was still angry. Nothing stirred but the fire above us; so we went in.
The lamp room stood. The shelves had fallen, and the lamps lay smashed on the floor. There were oil jars broken too, and we looked at each other, knowing fire might close the way behind us. But below were the strong pillars of Cretan Minos, which had withstood two great earthquakes. I thought it was a chance worth taking; and the Cranes trusted me.
Below, all was thick darkness. We made wicks from our garments for two lamps which would still hold oil; there was no lack of kindling. I found the secret thread still tied about its pillar. I took it in one hand, and a lamp in the other, and led the way.
The place had changed. We had to paddle in wine and oil, in lentils or in sesame, where the shock had thrown down the cysts and shelves. And once, as we crossed the ancient armory, we saw beyond it, through a narrow chink, wild tossing torchlight, and heard the shouts of men fighting like beasts. I guessed the vaults of treasure lay there. But the Cranes kept with me, sure and silent. Our minds were single; we did not take that sickness.
At last we came to the Watcher. Great stones had fallen from the pillar by him, and he had risen a little out of the ground. You could see his jaw now and his fine strong teeth; he must have been young. The Cranes started, but he was an old friend to me; I saw no malice in his grin. It was his shaky pillar I did not care for; I put finger on lip, and we trod cat-footed.
At last we saw before us the upward door, and under it a crack of light. We crept up softly; and laying my ear to the wood, I heard a sound of chanting.
I tried the door, fearing to find it jammed out of the true. But it opened smoothly, still oiled from the last time. We grasped our weapons, and slipped within. The anteroom was full of a flickering glimmer. We crept across it; beyond was the great stairway, all dusky red with light thrown back from the burning sky. But there were lamps below, and mixed with the smoke a swirling cloud of incense. I signed for silence, and looked through.
I saw before me a rite scrambled up out of fear and wreck: priests and priestesses in their daily clothes, with some rag or scrap as symbol of sacred raiment; rich pedestals bearing lamps of common clay, a boy with a dirty face holding the fretted censer; cracked vases of precious work laid leaking by, and the holy oils in pots from the kitchen. The white throne of Minos stood empty between its gryphons. The daggled crowd faced the other way, to the sunken earth court. White-faced hierophants stood round it, their gold-stitched robes torn and soiled, like mountebanks in rich men's cast-offs bought from chamber grooms. Their incantations, shaky as the plaints of beggars, filled the place with a gabbling drone; sometimes they coughed, as wind-blown soot caught their throats.
Down in the earth court a man was standing, naked down from the neck; broad-bodied, thick-legged, thatched with black hair on chest and groin and shins, a-straddle before the sacred Labrys. His trunk glistened with the chrism a shaking old man and woman smeared on him with half-palsied hands. From the neck down he was man, and base; above the neck he was beast, and noble. Calm and lordly, long-horned and curly-browed, the splendid bull-mask of Daidalos gazed out through the sorry huddle with its grave crystal eyes.
Above the chanting, half muffled by the walls, I could hear the fight still raging; the clatter of weapons and of stones, the shouts of men, the Amazons yelling. Our friends had kept faith with us. Now it was time. I gave the war whoop, and rushed out among them.
The celebrants screamed and scattered. There was a rush for the staircase, old men and women knocking each other down, while those who were stronger trod them under. From outside came the shouts of the defenders, as they heard they had been taken from behind. A few wild-eyed guards, who had been stationed about the Throne Room itself, rushed in disordered. I thought the Cranes could hold them. As for me, I had one thing to do.
He stood at bay, against the high wall that carried the stairway above the pit. It was too deep for him to climb out of it except by its steps. I stood at the top of them, and called his name. I wanted him to know me. The gold mask turned, and the curved eyes faced me. Fixed with that kingly gaze, which lent majesty even to what hid within it, I lifted my arm, and gave the salute of the team leader to the bull. Then I leaped down to him.
For a moment he stood with the wall behind him. Then his arm shot out grasping. A shape like a black thunderbolt whirled round him in the air. He had snatched up Mother Labrys from her stand, the King-Eater, the ancient guardian. On the stairs above us, a priestess screamed.
He had denied me my warrior's standing; so I had been ready to kill him unarmed as one kills wild beasts. Yet it stirred my heart, to see there would be a fight. I danced about him, feinting with my spear, while he waited, half crouched, with the ax laid back to his shoulder. And it seemed wrong to me that either of us should be armed, save he with his long horns, which presently I must grasp and vault on, while the gamblers called the odds, and the people shouted in the painted stands.
The old priest and priestess had scrambled out; now the small space was clear. I lunged, to make a quick end. But fear had quickened him too. Down came the stone blade upon my spear shaft, a foot from the head, and it drooped like a switched grass stalk, cut half through. Then we two were alone in our little bull pit, as in the days of the primal sacrifice; the armed beast and the naked man.
I heard his heavy grunting in the hollow mask, as he came forward lifting the ax to strike. There was strength in those fleshy shoulders. Above in the Throne Room was a battle raging; there could be no help yet. He had worked round me, to head me off from the steps, and was driving me back against the further wall. Then, when there was nothing more to do, my body thought for me, as it does in the dance. I stood up against the wall, and when the ax came at me, dropped like a stone. As it struck the wall where I had been, I seized his leg and threw him.
He fell heavily, on the hard glazed floor of the earth court. I heard the muffled clang of the gold mask striking; and when I grappled him and saw it askew, I knew he was fighting blind. He still had the ax; but now we were infighting, and he could not swing it. He shortened his grip and, as we rolled and twisted, beat me with it as one might with any stone. But I hampered his arm, so that it did me no great hurt. And I thought, "Labrys will never fight for him." She was old, and used to dignity; and once again she had fed upon a king. She would not like to be taken lightly.
And I was right. If he had let her go, and used both hands to wrestle, he would have had a chance; he was twice my weight, and had not labored that day like me. But he was no wrestler, though Cretans are well taught; he could not give up the hope of cracking my head. So as he raised the ax blade, I had time to grab my dagger out of my belt, and drive it home with all the strength left in me. It had a long way to go, through his thick carcass; but it reached his life. He doubled up with a great grunting cry, clasping his midriff. I stood up from him, with the ax in my hand.
A cry went up from the people on the stairs; but more of awe than grief; and a deep hush followed it. Looking up, I saw the Cranes all safe, and the guards already fled away. Before me he lay writhing, scraping the noble mask of the Bull God on the floor. I drew it off, and held it up to the people.
Now I saw his face, grimacing with bared teeth. I stepped up to him, to hear what he would say to me. But he only stared at me as at some shape of chaos, seen in a dream where nothing makes sense. He who had thought to rule without the sacrifice, who had never felt the god's breath that lifts a man beyond himself, had nothing to take him kinglike to the dark house of Hades. And yet, mixed with the blood and sweat that smeared his breast, I saw the oil that had made him slippery while we grappled. He had been anointed, when we broke in. So after all there was a rite still to do.
I lifted the mask of Minos, and put it on. Through the eyes of thick curved crystal, everything looked little, far and clear; I had to pause awhile, to get the feel of it and judge my distance. Then I swung Labrys back, and brought her down, my head and shoulders and body coming round with the blow. The force of it tingled through my hands; and the voice at my feet was silent.
From the Throne Room above I heard the cry of the Cranes; and from the porch the din of rout, as the news reached the defenders. But I stood still, seeing through the crystal a small bright image, such as a god may see who looks down from the sky, far down and back for a thousand years to men who lived and suffered in ancient days; and in my heart was a long silence.
BOOK 5 NAXOS
1
We sailed from Crete, at last, in a ship we found in an olive field.
Not only the earth had felt Poseidon's trident. The ebbing sea, that had grounded the keels at Amnisos, had rushed back with the earthquake. It had broken the mole, and dashed the ships upon it, and flooded the lower town, and killed more people than a war. But a few ships had been carried inshore and stranded softly, like this among the olives. We rolled her down to the water on the trunks of the broken trees.
We mounted guard on her day and night, till the weather let us get away. All Crete was in turmoil. As soon as it was known the House of the Ax had fallen, the native Cretans rose up everywhere, to tear down the strongholds and sack the palaces. Sometimes the lords were killed with all their household; sometimes they fled to the mountains; a few whom their people loved were left in quiet. Rumors came in every hour; and men would send to me, asking me to lead this band or that. To all these I gave the same answer, that I would come back soon. It was not as a freed bull-dancer leading freed slaves to plunder that I meant to reign in Crete. I would come as a king, to Hellenes and Cretans both alike. Now there would be no lack of ships; if I could not get enough in Attica and Troizen and Eleusis, I should have Hellene kings elbowing each other to share the enterprise; more than I wanted, if I was not quick. From this day on, the mainland would rule the Isles. Never again, in any Hellene kingdom, would boys and girls take to the hills at the sight of a Cretan sail.
The bull-dancers who came from the Hellene lands took ship with us, and the Minyans from the Cyclades. Only two girls stayed behind to marry Cretans; men who had loved them from the ringside, and sent them gifts and letters, but never met with them till now. But they were from other teams; even now when our hearts looked homeward, the Cranes were one kindred still.
We had no great trouble to man our ship. Many men had killed old enemies in the rioting, and wanted to get away before the blood-feud caught them up. We built a shelter near the place, and did not let the girls go far alone, even full-armed. It was a lawless time.