The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Naomi Mitchison

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was bad,’ said Tarrik, and stopped laughing and walked from one bit of scattered turf to another, tramping on them. ‘He was bad. His things were bad. Rotten. Rotten roots. I like sound things. Sweet apples. Hard apples—like yours, Berris.’

      ‘My things!’ said Berris Der. ‘Oh God, you should have killed me—I don’t matter. But he …’ And his voice trailed off into silence, overwhelmed with the loss of Hellas.

      ‘The Council will think you mad, if they think no worse,’ said Harn Der again.

      But Tarrik bent down and was lacing his shoes. ‘I shall want clean clothes,’ he said. ‘Burn these, with hers, and give them to your fields, Harn Der.’ He spoke now in the voice of the Corn King. They would be very careful to obey him; next year the crops would know.

      He took the clean linen and went off by himself to the stream. All this time her star had been round his neck; when he lifted it, he found it had blistered his skin underneath in a star pattern. So while he washed, he put it under water to get cool, downstream from where he was. He also found that where her teeth had gone through the skin on his arm, there was still bleeding; it would not stop for cold water, or burnet leaves, or dock. After some hesitation he touched it with the star. Then it stopped at once. Tarrik knew no more about how magic worked than any other of the men, but it interested him immensely; that was perhaps the Greek part of him, not taking everything for granted. He dressed and walked slowly back to the camp; the star was on his neck again, but well wrapped in leaves, so that it should burn them first. It was the middle of the afternoon by now, very hot; he thought he could smell the lime grove, breathing its sweetness towards him from the other slope, a mile away now.

      When the fire in the brazier had burnt right out, Erif Der woke up again, slowly, in time with some singing of her mother’s. Moving her eyes and hands a little, she found, comfortingly, that she was wearing her best clothes, and remembered after a time what had happened. She was no longer a virgin: she settled down to that, with a certain pleasant relaxing of all her muscles. She had been hurt: that was all cured. By Tarrik: who cared what Tarrik did?—he would not be Chief much longer. But Tarrik had her star. She sat up suddenly. ‘Mother, oh, mother!’ she said, ‘he took my star!’

      ‘Well,’ said Nerrish softly, ‘do you mind?’

      ‘No,’ said Erif, ‘perhaps not. But what shall I do for some things?’ And she put her mouth close to her mother’s ear, and whispered.

      ‘The power is in you,’ said Nerrish.’ ‘Listen! I have done without things for years now. Have you ever seen me eat lately? No. And as for my star, I threw it into the sea last winter. I will tell you something, because you are more to me than the rest: soon, quite soon, I am going to turn into a bird, a wise bird with rosy feathers. After I am buried, I shall creep through the earth, all little, till I come to an egg, and there I will rest for a long time. Then I shall come out to the rose-red bird flocks. Look, Erif, my baby bird, it will be soon!’ And she spread her arms and the grey stuff wavered about her as she hovered a moment in the dim light of the tent.

      ‘But are you going to die, mother?’ said Erif, and her lip trembled.

      ‘Yes, perhaps. And he will be sorry’—she nodded towards her bed and some of Harn Der’s gear hung up beside it—‘but you will know better.’

      ‘Won’t you tell him?’

      ‘No,’ said Nerrish, ‘he is a man, he would be afraid.’

      ‘Some men aren’t afraid,’ said Erif musingly, and reached down to take hold of her own slim legs; as she did it, her plaits with the coloured ribbons fell forward. ‘Oh, mother,’ she said, ‘oh, my lovely hair! These are your very own ribbons that came from the other end of the world!’

      ‘Yes,’ said Nerrish, laying her cheek for a moment lightly on the smooth roundness of Erif’s head, as a mother wild duck does with her soft babies.

      Erif was stroking and purring over the bright, lovely colours, the rainbowed shining silk from that other end of the world! ‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘I must go out, I must show them to Berris. Every one must see me!’ As she stood up, her mother slipped a stick into her hand, a long, smooth thing of ivory, carved into narrow leaf-shapes, and a fruit under her hand. Half consciously she leaned on it, and took the weight from her foot; her mother knew it was dangerous to disregard a pain that was no longer felt: it might come back.

      Outside the tent, the sun was blinking bright. She stepped out, with her high head, her white dress woven with coloured, fantastic lions, her coat of thin linen bordered with kingfisher feathers, her turquoise belt and ear-rings, and the brilliant shine of her plaits. Slowly, leaning on her long stick, she passed the groups of servants, the fires, pale yellow in sunlight. Wheat-ear ran up to her: ‘Oh lovely, lovely!’ she cried, and danced round her big sister. Further on, Erif saw her father with Berris, and, rather to one side, Tarrik in clean clothes, standing by his horse. They all stared at her, and she wished there were more of them. Tarrik came up to her, a little uncertainly. ‘I have your star,’ he said, ‘you beauty, Erif!’ And he suddenly kissed her hand. ‘I’m wearing it now,’ he said again, with a kind of challenge. ‘Go on, then,’ said Erif kindly, disconcertingly, and looked him up and down, and touched his arm, and then his neck, his cheek, and his lips with cool, baffling fingers. He stood quite still, feeling them trail about him. ‘And I have your coat,’ she said. ‘Burn it—for the fields,’ he said earnestly. But she answered, low, ‘Oh, no, Tarrik. You don’t know everything,’ and went past him, to her father, the Spring Queen, quite grown up.

      Harn Der drew her aside admiringly. ‘He has killed Epigethes, the fool! Was that your work, Erif?’ Fortunately Erif was much too pleased with herself at the moment to look as startled as she felt. ‘It begins,’ she said. ‘If it goes on,’ said Harn Der, ‘there will be no need for you to marry him.’ ‘No,’ said Erif Der, and made a childish but fleeting face, and walked away.

      In the meantime Tarrik had mounted; he rode past Berris, then drew rein and turned again, and held out something in his hand. ‘I got these from Epigethes,’ he said, ‘after he was dead; he left them. Look, Berris.’ Berris looked, and looked again, and frowned. He took them into his own hand and peered at them closely. ‘These are copies of my keys,’ he said. ‘I worked on them too long not to know.’ ‘And those?’ Berris shook his head, beginning to look horrified; these were the keys that locked up his precious metals and stones. There was only one use that could be made of a duplicate set. Tarrik jingled the others gently in his hand. ‘Copies of somebody else’s keys?’ he said. ‘Well, Berris?’ ‘Yes,’ said Berris, with a dry mouth, trying to speak ordinarily. ‘Yes, Tarrik, I see.’

       Chapter Four

      SLOWLY AND JERKILY the ox-team was dragging back the great cart; every jolt went straight from axle to floorboards, and through the thick, black carpets, and shook Erif Der till her teeth rattled. She and the other women in the cart talked in whispers, and nursed their hands, scored across and across with arrow-heads for dead Nerrish. Wheat-ear was there, and Essro, and four or five older women, cousins or aunts, and the nurse, tired out with wailing round the grave. Erif Der herself was wondering whether her dead mother had yet started that journey, a little angry with her for having died just then, when her daughter might be needing her so badly. She frowned across at Wheat-ear, who was crying, more from excitement than anything else, then, finding it had no effect, pulled the little sister over to sit on her knee where she would not feel the jolting of the cart so much. By and bye Wheat-ear quieted down and began sucking her thumb, as she still did after any passion; unconsciously, Erif Der held her a little more closely, musing over children unborn. Once they came through a wood of ash trees, and the broad, dry leaves blew about, some falling СКАЧАТЬ