Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) (33 page)

‘Would you have us eat mock-sacrifices of bread and wine?’

‘Well, why not?’

‘Because the midsummer sacrifice must offer itself voluntarily, and no loaf of bread and no bottle of wine can do that. Tonight the people take bread and wine in ritual imitation of our feast; but if we had not celebrated it in fact, there’d be no virtue in the imitation. The Victim met his fate of his own free will; he was my dear brother. If no victim died on behalf of the people, the fields would grow barren.’

‘How am I to believe that?’

‘Before we tore him in pieces, we cut his throat and caught his life blood in a bladder. This will be mixed with water from the royal cistern, and a jar of it carried to every town and village in the kingdom, for sprinkling on the fields before the autumn sowing, to sanctify them. My brother died for his love of the Goddess and of us all, and when the labourers weep for him at the sprinkling rite, their tears will draw down the winter rains from the Moon, the source of all life-giving waters. And they’ll work strenuously for the remainder of the double year, grateful for the love he showed them.’

‘I see: “It is expedient that a man should die for the people.” But why was it necessary to eat his flesh?’

‘As a mark of reverence; ordinary corpses are buried in the earth. But his is the greatest prize that a man can win: to be made one with the living flesh of the nine-fold Mother.’

‘And the King? When will he die?’

‘The King dies when his term ends. That year’s Victim will be spared, and reign not merely for an hour; and the Old King will dance the Transformations himself, and sanctify the fields with his own blood. It’s because of the awful holiness of this sacrifice that New Cretan custom forbids the violent taking of life on any other occasion, even in war. If the sacrifice were annulled, murder would be committed on the least excuse, and where should we be then?’

I thought of the strewn corpses on Monte Cassino, where I had been almost the only unwounded survivor of my company; and of the flying-bomb raid on London, when I had held a sack open for an air-raid warden to shovel the bloody fragments of a child into it; and finally of Paschendaele where, in the late summer of 1917, my elder brother had been killed in the bloodiest, foulest and most useless battle in history – as a boy I had visited his grave soon after that war ended, and the terror of the ghastly, waterlogged countryside with its enormous over-lapping shell-craters had haunted me for years. ‘The Goddess knows best,’ I said to the girl eventually, and she nodded in grave assent.

‘You’re looking for Stormbird,’ she announced.

‘I am; how did you know?’

‘I know everything, as I told you in the alder-grove. You’ll find her by the mere, consulting my fish.’ She skipped off, before I had time to prostrate myself. But I was taking no chances: I performed my solemn puja as if she were still visible, in compliment to her omnipresence.

As I turned into the street again, I collided with the Interpreter.

‘Ah, what a fortunate coincidence in the extreme,’ he said, ‘viz: I feared that you would prove to be the needle in the haystack. I have run here post-haste in search of you.’

‘More trouble?’ I asked. ‘Anything happened to Starfish?’ ‘Alas, you have divined my news. Starfish is no more. This afternoon the servants found him lifeless beside the waterfall on Poets’ Hill, not far from our house.’

‘I’m grieved, but not surprised. Did he kill himself?’

‘Oh, Sir, what a foolish suggestion! A New Cretan to take his own life!’

‘Well, how did he die?’

‘Of a broken heart, and with no desire for rebirth. He left a clay-board of verses behind him. I’m no judge of poetry; I’m a recorder, but a specialist in the English language. To me they read ill, and far-fetched. I have them in my head. Listen !’

Waving his fingers to mark the rhythm, he recited:

‘O runnels of this holy hill
    Beneath the stars that shine

Attentive to your Muse’s will,
    Who sister is to mine,

 

And on the heath-flower-scented air
    Fantastically raise

Your praises of a cold white glare
    That none but madmen praise;

 

With burning throat I bow to taste
    Peace at your waterfall,

Where my proud Muse must come in haste,
    If she would come at all.’

He grimaced, and said: ‘Are these not incoherences and quite bad? Thus, there you are: a pretty kettle of fish. And worse: as I entered the town, intending to implore the Witch Sally to come back, I met my colleague Quant, making his exit with the news that the Witch is no more, either! Now there remains only yourself to step into the breach, and by keeping guard at the Magic House stave off calamity. But my colleague Quant assures me…’

‘Quant’s right again,’ I said testily, ‘i.e., e.g.,
nem. con.
, and
verb. sap.
, I’m not going back to Horned Lamb on any condition.’

‘But, Sir, it’s the custom…’ the Interpreter quavered virtuously.

‘Tell that to someone else.’

‘Assuredly I will, Sir!’ He darted off with a nasty look, and I went on to Broad Thumb’s house.

Quite often, when I am half-asleep, I find myself reading a book. It is always in short dialogue, very interesting, very witty, and the author and his characters continue to surprise each other all down one page and halfway down the next. When I wake up, I remember tempting snatches of it, such as:

… and then, horror! in marched Mrs Blackstone with the little corpse held out accusingly between the pincers of the kitchen fire-tongs.
    ‘So he shanghaied her,’ said someone in knowing tones.
    ‘Shanghaied whom? Not Mrs B.? Ha, ha! No, not Mrs B.! Nobody has ever shanghaied Mrs B.!’

Now I felt as though I were reading that book again, but with the critical reservation that when I came out of my dream it probably wouldn’t make sense – not even Starfish’s poem which (though my translation is faintly Housmanesque) sounded magnificent in the original, nor the Goddess Nimuë’s defence of ritual murder.

I was soon at Broad Thumb’s house, and Broad Thumb was in. She greeted me as an old friend, and gave me the run of her larder. I was hungry, and ate a great deal of bread and cheese and nearly a whole goose-berry-pie. When I explained to her that I had to restore my nervous energy after visits to the bagnio and the Playhouse, she fried me a couple of eggs as well.

‘How’s Stormbird?’ I asked finally, wiping my mouth.

‘Oh, quite grown up. You’d hardly recognize her. Some cousins of my husband’s from Rabnon have taken her out to see the fun; one of them’s the goal-keeper who’s the talk of every barber-shop in the whole kingdom – the berserk fighter, Open-please. He greatly admires Stormbird, and I think she’s flattered. Not that I want anything to come of it, because I’m hoping that she’ll prove monogamous like ourselves – I should hate to lose her now, she’s such an affectionate girl – and settle down here in the Old City with a good husband. I wish now that I’d gone with them to keep her out of mischief, but I wanted to get on with my spinning. She’s still so young, initiated only this afternoon; she hasn’t even got her gold scarf-pin yet.’

‘Would you like me to keep an eye on her for you?’

‘I would indeed; besides, it’s your privilege, since you named her. Do whatever you think best for the dear child. She’ll probably be down at the mere, feeding the fish.’

‘Well, goodbye, Broad Thumb.’

‘Goodbye, poet. Leave a blessing on this house.’

‘May this be the last roof of Dunrena to fly off when the wind blows!’

A tremendous noise of singing and shouting floated down the night breeze: it was as if the fourth and fourteenth of July had accidentally coincided, but I found the mere-side almost deserted. I recognized Open-please at once by his height and his red and white Rabnon costume. He was standing by a honeysuckle arbour – how strong honeysuckle smells at night! – and bragging about his feats to the three admiring relatives. Modesty was not a New Cretan vice, and the account was evidently meant to impress Sapphire. She wore peasant’s dress, with a full, river-grey skirt and a close-fitting blue jacket with gold buttons at the cuffs, and was crumbling bread for the fish. I saw with relief that she seemed already bored with Open-please’s eloquence.

I went up and greeted them. ‘I’m Venn-Thomas, a poet from the past,’ I said, ‘and Stormbird’s mother has asked me to keep an eye on her tonight; she’s young and inexperienced and may easily offend against custom. That’s my commission, and also my privilege because it was I who named her.’

Everyone looked uncomfortable; Open-please seemed positively angry.

‘Would you break up our party?’ he protested.

‘Mari forbid!’

‘But you’re not one of us. Smokes don’t mix. How can we celebrate with you about?’

I frowned at him. ‘At any rate not by boasting of your feats, when the credit’s due to the Goddess who, for reasons best known to herself, inspired you to berserk fury. So don’t try to crow, Chicken Cluck, or your Mother might peck you; and her beak’s as sharp as a thorn.’

‘What do you know of custom, or of the Goddess, you barbarian from the past? It’s common talk in the barbershop at Rabnon that you caused the death of our magician Claud, that you spent a night alone in the Nonsense House, and that you brought a brutch in your hair to do us harm!’

‘Stormbird,’ I said, turning away from him with a gesture of impatience, ‘your mother has given you into my charge. If you’ve finished feeding the fish, come with me and leave this man to ask Ana’s pardon for his intemperate words.’

Open-please scowled. ‘Stormbird,’ he said, ‘you must choose between this monster and myself.’

‘Stormbird,’ I said, ‘you must choose between your mother’s orders and this man’s arrogance.’

‘Have you brought anything to show that she gave you those orders?’ she asked cautiously.

Open-please and his three cousins at once took up the point. ‘Yes, where’s your token?’ they shouted in unison. ‘You’re a barbarian, and all barbarians used to tell nothing but lies and practise nothing but cruelties.’

If I had been back in my own year of grace, I’d have run at the bastard and pitched him to the fishes, but I couldn’t do that here. There was no need, either; I realized that though he had a good hand to play, I held the joker. ‘If the Goddess felt no confidence in me,’ I said haughtily, ‘do you think she would have caused me to be evoked from the past? You talk like a three-year-old. She is immortal; there was never a time when she was not omnipotent. I am her poet, and by insulting me, her guest, you also insult her. Now join hands in a ring around me: you, Open-please, and you three there. In Mari’s Name, obey!’ They obeyed, though with bad grace. If one used the right formula, the commons could be hypnotized into doing any ridiculous thing.

I spread out my hand and piously intoned: ‘Divine Mari, conjoined in trinity with the holy Child Nimuë, and the holy Mother Ana; omnipotent guardian of sky and earth and sea, mistress of the Five Estates, patroness also of moon-men, half-men and elders; Victory is in your divine Name. You are the sole strength of your magicians: for without you nothing can be ordered, conjured or contrived. Goddess, I adore you as divine, I invoke your Name. Lovingly grant the plea that I make to your godhead: that your child Stormbird shall be free to come with me, alone, to eat from my plate, to drink from my cup, and that these four fools who doubt your power, shall remain here, hand in hand, unable to break this circle until the first rays of the sun gild the white towers of your city of Dunrena!’

I ducked out of the ring. ‘Stormbird!’ I called.

She ran to me, smiling, and we walked off, leaving her companions under the honeysuckle as if glued together, and looking as stupid as hens with their beaks on a chalk line.

‘Wait a moment, my child, and let me look at you!’

It was extraordinary how different she was from Sapphire, though her features were unchanged: no heavy weight of learning on her mind, no pensive, considered gestures, her eyes bright with humour. Beautiful as ever, and not dull by any means – the breadth of her forehead showed that – but completely artless. As I looked at her, my feelings settled: the factitious passion disappeared, and a deep, wistful love remained, the love that I had felt for her at first sight; I recognized it now as the love that a father feels for his only daughter. I had always tried hard to conceal my sentimentality: in fact, I had buried it under so many cartloads of stony cynicism to keep it from sprouting, that I rarely remembered its existence. Not even Antonia realized how passionately I always longed for a daughter. We had three sons, and that was fine, of course, and I would not have been without a single one of them, but at each birth I had prayed that it would be a girl. The arrival of our third son almost estranged us, because she said happily: ‘Three sons; I do feel proud! Now we can stop, can’t we, Ned?’ At last I knew what had drawn me so strongly to Sapphire: she looked like Antonia, but also like the faded photographs of my mother as a girl – she was, in fact, exactly what a daughter of mine might have been.

I lifted Stormbird off her feet and kissed her gently. She laughed for pleasure. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked. ‘But I liked it,’ she added. ‘It makes me feel so safe.’

‘Where do we go from here?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘Did you see any fish?’

‘I should think I did. When I scattered my bread, they all bobbed up, even the big white grandmother – for the first time for months and months, my cousins told me; they thought she was dead – and they opened their mouths like this, all round, as though they were saying O, O, O! It’s wonderfully lucky; and today’s my birthday!’

‘Let’s go towards the noise, shall we?’

‘I don’t like noise, but you’ll look after me, won’t you?’

She slipped her arm into mine, and we went off over the lip of the crater and through the Palace grounds, but when we reached the big spiral of tents, we did not venture into the roaring bedlam there, but stood under a tree near a bed of hollyhocks. Everyone carried an oak-branch and was three parts drunk with the red wine from the kegs that had been broached outside every tent, and I had never seen such unrestrained horse-play, even at the Bar-XL Ranch in Arizona on Christmas Eve, where the girls at least kept their heads and struggled nobly to preserve the decencies of the festival.