Free The Corn King and the Spring Queen by Naomi Mitchison

curious, savage creature man, and how one should deal with him and overcome him. Then they moved a little brazier of burning charcoal close to the girl’s head, and Nerrish laid some large, flat leaves on it. The smoke rose and hung and spread itself upwards along the walls of the tent; Erif Der lay and slept, breathing easily, the colour coming back into her cheeks.
    Meanwhile the horse had found its way back to Tarrik, and stood, with twitching ears, blowing into the palm of his hand. He had just said to Harn Der: ‘Three days ago I killed Epigethes,’ and was watching to see what would happen next. Harn Der said nothing at all for the moment, but breathed heavily. Berris, though, had heard. ‘You haven’t done that,’ he said, ‘Tarrik!’ And then, seeing it was true, covered eyes with hands in sheer horror.
    Said Harn Der: ‘This was—unwise.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Tarrik, and began laughing as he had that day at the Council.
    â€˜Why did you do it, Chief?’ said the older man.
    But Tarrik went on laughing and then suddenly kicked backwards like a vicious horse at a clod of earth which exploded under his heel.
    And Berris groaned: ‘Are you mad?’
    â€˜He 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.’
    â€˜My things!’ said Berris Der. ‘Oh God, you should have killed me—I don’t matter. But he …’ And hisvoice trailed off into silence, overwhelmed with the loss of Hellas.
    â€˜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!’
    â€˜Well,’ said Nerrish softly, ‘do you mind?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜The power is in you,’ said Nerrish.’ ‘Listen! I