it’s important enough to like or not to like! It’s only silly made-up stuff. But if I chose to, of course I’d like it. It belongs to the King and it cost as much as hundreds of barbarians!’
Berris was so anxious to justify himself that he hardly noticed that. ‘It is important!’ he said. ‘What is the good of anything else if there’s no beauty? Philylla, what can there be to like about that ugliness?’
‘It’s about war, it makes me think of soldiers and swords and victories. They are the things that matter. We only make statues of them just to be reminded. The statues aren’t anything by themselves. Of course they aren’t!’
‘But—but—is that all the praise your artists get?’
‘Artists!’ said Philylla, with incredible contempt. She could not at the moment think of anything scathing enough to say. At last she said: ‘You haven’t even got a sword!’
‘I thought strangers did not need to go armed in your State,’ said Berris bitterly, wishing he could knock her on the head, make her understand somehow! ‘See this, Philylla, daughter of Themisteas—I’m a better artist than the man who made that statue. You set me anything to do, with sword or bow, on foot or riding, and I’ll show you you’re wrong!’
It was quite a minute before Philylla answered. ‘You are going to war under the King,’ she said very seriously. ‘You are to kill one of the generals of the Achaean League. You are to bring me back proof that you have done it.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I’ll believe everything you tell me about your silly statues.’
‘Very well,’ said Berris, quite happy again, ‘that’s agreed, isn’t it, Philylla?’
‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly nervous. ‘Oh yes! But I had better bring you in now. The Queen will want to see you. Are you—are you going to tell your king what you’ve promised?’
‘Of course.’
‘And if he forbids you?’
‘He won’t.’
‘But he may. And he will be very angry with me. But I don’t mind. You are going to do it, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’
‘Then we’re friends?’
‘Yes,’ said Berris. And then all at once: ‘I’ve got two sisters at home, one older than you, I think, and one younger.’
‘I’m going to be fourteen. How old are your sisters?’
‘One’s seventeen. She’s the Chief’s wife, and she can work magic.’
Philylla stopped and turned round: ‘Magic! Oh, how lovely! Can she make charms to get people to do what she wants? Oh, can she tell fortunes?’
‘She can make stones dance, and men and women invisible. She can make the waves follow her along the beach, and the sky change colour.’
‘I don’t believe you. No one can do that, not even the priests in Egypt. Can you make charms yourself too?’
‘No, but my chief can. Only not here. He’s Corn King in Marob. He makes the flax grow and the corn. Whatever he does, happens to the crops. So he has to do special things sometimes.’
‘Sacrifices? Our kings have to do them. But it’s for war and good laws. The slaves do them for the crops here!’
‘Yes, but—’ said Berris, wanting to explain fifty things at once, and then they came through into another court. And there was Tarrik, who had found a convenient pillar to lean against while he listened and smiled; and Sphaeros explaining and asking questions and walking about as he did it, unconsciously gone back to childhood, making patterns with his feet on the marble chequer of the paved floor; and the King and Queen of Sparta, hand in hand, standing beside the round raised basin of clear water that reflected that bright, almost spring-like sky.
Chapter Three
THE CHIEF OF MAROB and his people were housed in some of the very large and much decorated guest-rooms that King Leonidas had once ordered to be made, round an old court at the back of the King’s house: that was years ago when there had been some very particular visitors from Macedonia to receive and impress. By now the plaster and paint showed signs of wear and decay, though Agiatis had seen to it that there should be enough cleaning and touching up to keep them very magnificent. Nothing of the sort would be made nowadays, of course, but still she and her husband thought of it all—when such things occurred to them—as very fine and adequate for the guests of the Spartan State.
She had given Sphaeros an even better room, close to their own. It had a vine painted all over it, with red grapes and yellow baskets in low relief, and winged babies, grape gathering or asleep. There was one that always reminded her of her own dead baby. Philylla, spreading a coloured quilt on the bed, looked round and saw Agiatis staring at the wall quietly and solemnly, with her lips a little parted, and knew what it was, and wondered for the hundredth time which of the two kings whose children she had borne, Agiatis had loved best. And then suddenly she found that old wonder changing into a new one, about the barbarian who had spoken to her so oddly about beauty: because, of course, the babies and the grapes were ever so pretty, and she’d always liked them and always would, and anyhow what he said hadn’t meant anything, couldn’t have, only she’d have to try and believe him—if he kept his promise.
Tarrik was quite decided about not letting Sphaeros see any the less of him now that they were in Hellas. The position became gradually clear to him, though not to Berris nor most of the others. On the one hand there was the King and his friends, those odd and silent people with some intensely interesting business of their own, in whose completion he and his men might be called upon to share, though they were so completely shut off from its preparation. He could feel that they could never be friends, he and Kleomenes, they would never talk together about kingship and all the things he had learnt from Sphaeros, learnt easily because of his own partly Greek mind, and that he had come all this way to know more of. So far, he was angry and rather hurt. He was prepared, at least he had thought so, to be looked down upon by these true Hellenes; but only for ideas imperfectly worked out or concepts scarcely realised—something that could be remedied; not, certainly, like this, as a simple matter of course.
Then there was the rest of Sparta. They did not seem to look down on him, and yet perhaps they puzzled him more. Because, in a way, they seemed more Hellene than the King’s friends. The elaborations and distractions of their lives were more what he had expected and half feared, yet knew he could very quickly get into the way of dealing with, seeing that money was the one thing needful: beauty could so easily be bought.
Not that Tarrik was taken in for long by this beauty. Even if he was not a craftsman himself, he had the clear eye and ready scorn that he had learnt from Berris and the metalworkers of Marob. He and Berris used to laugh together immensely, and not very secretly. It pained Sphaeros, who could not see why his pupil should value his own idea of beauty higher than courtesy to his hosts. Neither had much importance, but one was at least expedient.
The Chief’s other friends were, on the whole, delighted with this second half of Sparta, which received them so well, asked them to banquets where the food was excellent, the wine better still, and the general air of magnificence far surpassing anything they had ever come across. They drew on the common store to buy themselves slaves, horses, fine clothes, and all other necessaries for the life of pleasure, and thought well of their Chief who had brought them to it.
It was odd how definitely they thought of him as the Chief now, the leader in war and council, and not as the Corn King. At the same time they forgot all about the blighting and unlucky things that had happened to the magic part of him, the God in him. He was a man here like the rest of them, governing them through the force of that manhood. There were no gods in Sparta, no gods at least that did things, only vaguely remembered, faintly and formally recognised shadows of what had been; or if, after all, there was anything more, it was hidden from the people of Marob.