Free The King Must Die by Mary Renault Page B

went from me, thus consenting, into the dark house, Zeus thundered in heaven, and the first of the rain began to fall.
    "The storm came on quickly. I had not handled an oar since boyhood, and had ado to make the landing place. When I got there, wet through, I looked about for your father, to give the boat to him. Then I heard from the boathouse an old woman's cackling laughter, and saw by the lightning the nurse sheltering from the rain. 'Don't seek for the bridegroom, King Pittheus; he grew impatient. Te-hee, young blood. I have got his clothes here, keeping dry; he won't need them for this night's work.' 'What do you mean, you old fool?' I said; the crossing had not sweetened me. 'Where is he?' 'Why, almost there by now, the Good Goddess give him joy of it. He said sea water was warmer than rain, and the maiden would need company, alone on such a night. A lovely man he is too; strips like a god; haven't I waited on his bath since first he came here? Ah, folk don't lie when they call you Pittheus the Wise.'
    "Well, Theseus, that is how your father came to your mother. As she told me later, she stood at first in the doorway of the Myrtle House, for fear of the dark within. When the levin-light lit heaven, she saw Troizen over the water, and the boat already far away; when it ceased her eyes were dulled with it and she saw nothing. Presently came a great clap close at hand, the sound and the flash together; and there before her, on the rocky slab outside the porch, all gleaming and glittering in a clear blue light, stood a kingly naked man, with dripping hair and beard and a ribbon of seaweed on his shoulder. What with her awe of the place, and her being overwrought, and the old woman's tales upon the way, she did not doubt the Lord Poseidon himself had come to claim her. The next flash showed her to your father sunk on her knees, her arms crossed on her bosom, waiting the pleasure of the god. So he lifted her up, and kissed her, and told her who he was. Presently in the house she covered him, with her foxskin cloak; and that was your beginning."
    He ceased. I said at last, "She has the cloak still. It is all worn and the fur is falling. Once I asked her why she kept it." Then I said, "How was this hidden from me?"
    "I bound the nurse with an oath that scared even her to silence. After the storm, your father went back the way he came; and I brought the Priestess to witness the proofs of what had been accomplished. But neither she nor anyone knew who was the man. Your father asked that of me; he said your life would be in danger even in Troizen, if the claimants in Attica knew what seed you came of. Your mother's fancy prompted me. I gave it out for the truth. When my wish was made known, folk who had other notions kept it to themselves."
    He paused; a fly lighted on the gold rim of the posset cup, crawled down to sip the dregs, and drowned. He muttered something about bone-idle servants, and pushed the cup away. Then he sank into thought, gazing through the window at the summer sea. Presently he said, "But I have thought to myself since, then, What put it into your father's head, a sensible man past thirty, to swim the strait like a wild boy? Why was he so sure he had made a son, he who had married twice and never got one? Who can follow the way of the Immortal Ones, when their feet tread earth? And I have asked myself if after all it was I or your mother whose eyes saw clear. It is when we stretch out our hands to our moira that we receive the sign of the god."
    5
    About seven days later, a ship touched at Troizen bound for Athens.
    The Palace steward had taken my passage and seen to everything. But never having been on the open sea, I could not wait till sailing-time to see her, and walked down to the harbor. There she was, moored to the spit they call the Beard of Troizen: a dark-sailed ship, her sides painted with long serpents, her prow ornament an eagle with back-swept wings and a bull's head; a ship of Crete.
    Cretan