like taking my things, Tarrik,’ said Erif Der, still sitting cross-legged, leaning a little against his knees.
‘Yes,’ said Tarrik. But how to make her different? ‘I do what I like with you,’ he said again, and pushed the sleeve back from her arm and ran his hand along it. Then he took off one of his own rings and put it on to her middle finger. ‘That’s for you, Erif,’ he said. Women like to be given things. The ring was too big for her: it was a sun-ring, a topaz in a claw setting, warm from his skin.
‘Who made it?’ she asked.
‘It comes from inland, from the north,’ he said. ‘Do you see, Erif, it is really a sort of dragon?’
‘No Greek could have made that,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘We make better things than the Greeks.’
‘Yes.’
‘Tarrik, you hate the Greeks, don’t you?’
‘Yes. No. Erif Der, take your hands from me!’ He stepped back quickly and a loose end of the cowrie chain swung against his sword hilt, tinkling. He twitched at it, and it broke: the shells came showering down between him and Erif.
She gave a little cry: ‘Oh, Tarrik, you are worse than Yersha!’ and began to pick them up again hurriedly.
For a moment the clouds seemed to thin. ‘She spoke to me just now,’ he said, and then, ‘Erif, I am in danger! I know I am as much Corn King as ever, I know I have the power still! But they think not, they think—oh, I can’t tell what they are thinking! I will make them believe in me again. You are my Queen, the Spring Queen, Erif; you must help me. You must! If you don’t I shall hate you: I do terrible things to the people I hate, I kill them in horrible ways, I hurt them for hours. I don’t want to hate you, Erif, I love you—’ Suddenly he stopped; he was saying things he had not meant to say. Was she changing?
‘You are mad,’ she said. ‘You are mad, Tarrik!’ and got to her feet. She had put the cowries somewhere, into her dress, perhaps, between her warm young breasts. He put out a hand for them and then checked himself, only keeping a grip of the woollen stuff of her dress, holding her so that she could not go away unchanged.
‘When the snow comes,’ he said, ‘they will have the bulls in, and the racing. I shall fight the bulls, Erif! Then they will see I have power, they will know I am Corn King and Chief of Marob!’ He let her go.
‘Yes,’ she said gently, ‘do that, Tarrik. Then it will be over and you will not be unhappy any more.’
‘I will not be unhappy any more,’ he repeated; and suddenly picked her up in his arms, picked her right up off the ground and kissed her as if he would never be done. In a little he felt she was kissing him back, her arms were round his neck, soft and strong and straining. He took her into his house. Women like to be given rings.
Eurydice, up in her own room, called the maid Apphé sharply to draw the curtains and light the lamps. ‘I feel so sad when the good weather is over,’ she said; ‘when the sea is rough: no ships, nothing! Oh, shall I ever get away, shall we ever go south, Apphé? Light the big lamp—yes, and more wood. And bring me my mirror. Oh, I am not so old. If I could get to my own Hellas I would still be happy. How happy I should be.’
‘But I know it will come, my lady,’ said Αpphé; ‘let me read your hand again. Look, you see, the sure line, the travel line, isn’t that certain?’
‘You’ve seen that often, so often, Apphé, and so have I. But it never comes. How could it? Charmantides will not leave Marob.’
‘Unless anything were to happen to we-know-who,’ said the maid.
‘Yes,’ said Eurydice, fingering the edge of her silver mirror, ‘unless he were free.’ And then: ‘I wish I knew what truly happened to that artist—Epigethes; he was to have made me a jewel-case. How he talked! Athens, Corinth, Rhodes. … What do you think, Apphé?’
‘You know what they say, my lady—’
‘Not a word of it true! He denied it—to me. How could Charmantides—? My sister’s son!’
‘No, my lady.’
‘And yet—all this last year—Oh, Apphé, it surely cannot be winter again already!’ She twitched the drawn curtains back; yes, there were real clouds, and that leaden, restless sea.
When it was nearly dusk, Erif Der, who had been lying back, half awake, half dreaming, suddenly sat up—so suddenly that Tarrik woke and blinked and swung over an arm to catch her; heavy and warm, it rested on her a moment before it slipped off again as he settled to sleep once more. She got up softly and soberly, and picked up her shoes and dress from the floor, and put them on, and splashed her hands and face with water that had sweet herb leaves soaking in it. She smiled at Tarrik lying there; she could see the mark on his chest where her star had burnt him, and his strong, bare arms that had held her so firmly and yet so softly, and the dark curly hair in his armpits that smelt of hay and summer and sun. She moved a step towards him, and then shook herself and tiptoed out, and down the stone stairs and out of a side door on to the road, and so to the beach. Eastwards, out to sea, it was black and wild looking, unquiet still after the storm; the only light was inland, over the tops of the houses. The snow might come soon, any day now. And, ‘I will do it!’ she said aloud, stamping on the pebbles, ‘I will! He shan’t change me—not this way! Let him go to his bullfight and end it!’ And then she began to run, plunging breathlessly across the shingle till she got to sand; while one is running hard there is no time for regrets, for changing one’s mind, for softness and love. When she stopped it was full night; she stood between low cliffs and a sea of hollow black and the lightless grey of foam-caps, unending. As she looked out, she thought she saw something, a spark, a tiny light, far off, hardly in sight. It was late in the year for a ship, late and bad weather; she could not be sure, sometimes it was there, sometimes hidden. She climbed half-way up the cliff to see better, but night was almost come, the wind pulled at her dress, she was cold and cramped, and if she stayed longer, they would miss her in the Chief’s house.
She went back more slowly, not at all afraid of the dark; she was making plans for magic now, to put something between him and the bulls, so that neither eye nor hand should do what he wanted of them. This bullfighting would be all the barbarian part of him, that she could bewitch easily, as it had been before, for the two Feasts. It would have been a different matter magicking him over anything in which the Greek part of him counted; but she had been lucky. She knew it. Carefully she thought out the things to do. He might be killed by the bulls; they were always savage, coming in from the plains. She frowned to herself and went on faster; she would not let him be killed, only make him do it badly—so that people saw—and then her father could get his way at last and leave her in peace. Or would it be better, better for every one, if he were to be killed, dead and forgotten? He would rather be killed than lose his power—if one could ever judge for another. And she herself, she would forget him, surely she would. Times like today were meant to be forgotten; she would be free again, to start another life of her own, not his nor her father’s. She took his ring and threw it hard out of sight, out to sea; and then thought what a fool she was; she might have used it. Never mind, she would use other things. She suddenly remembered Yersha’s silver hairpin that had come so opportunely to her hand, and laughed aloud and ran on again till she was back at the breakwater.
She scrambled up, lightlier than ever, and stood on the top, swaying to the wind; by the harbour wall she saw Berris holding a lantern, and called to him. He came, startled. ‘Where have you been, Erif?’
‘Talking to the crabs,’ she said. ‘And you? Won’t you make me something? Do, Berris! I’ll come and blow for you.’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘I can’t work just now. Oh, Erif, what are you doing to Tarrik?’
‘Doing what father wants.’
‘But not unless you want it yourself,’ said Berris, low and eagerly. ‘Father is not a god—nor Yellow Bull. They never think of beauty,