' 'Sing then! And make the hills resound! King, nymph, and priest shall gather round!' The god-he was a god, you realize that, don't you, Latro? The god was a king, the King of Nysa. Hilaeira was a nymph last night when we danced to the honor of the Twice-Born God. I'm a priest of the Shining God, because I'm a poet. The Shining God was telling you that you should sing when the King of Nysa called upon you. You did, and he took away the cords that bound us. So that part's all right.'
I asked him what part was not all right.
'I don't know,' he admitted. 'Perhaps everything's all right. But-' He stirred the coals, I suppose to give himself time to think, and I saw his hand shake. 'It's just that I've never actually seen an immortal before. You have, I know. You were talking of seeing the River God, back in our shining city.'
I said, 'I don't remember.'
'No, you wouldn't, I suppose. But you may have written about it in that book. You ought to read it.'
'I will, when I've written everything I still remember from today.'
He sighed. 'You're right, that's much more important.'
'I'm writing about the King of Nysa, saying he was a black man like the black man with us.'
Pindaros nodded. 'That was why he came, of course. As King of Nysa, he's that man's king, and no doubt that man's his faithful worshiper. The Great King's army, that's retreating toward the north, levied troops from many strange nations.'
Pindaros paused, staring at the flaming coals. 'Or it may be that he was following the Kid. He's rumored to do it, and the mysteries we performed yesterday may have called the Kid to us. They're intended to, after all. They say that where the Kid has been, one finds his old tutor asleep; and if one can bind him before he wakes, he can be forced to reveal one's destiny.' He shivered. 'I'm glad we didn't do that. I don't think I want to know mine, though I once visited the oracle of Iamus to ask about it. I wouldn't want to hear it from the mouth of a god, someone with whom I couldn't argue.'
I was still considering what he had said first. 'I thought I knew what that word king meant. Now I'm not sure. When you say 'the King of Nysa,' is it the same as when you say the army of the Great King is retreating?'
'Poor Latro.' Pindaros patted my shoulder as a man might quiet a horse, but there was so much kindness in it I did not mind. 'What a pity it would be if you, who can learn nothing new, were to lose the little you know. I can explain, but you'll soon forget.'
'I'll write it out,' I told him. 'Just as I'm writing now about the King of Nysa. Tomorrow I'll read it and understand.'
'Very well, then.' Pindaros cleared his throat. 'In the first days, the nations of men were ruled by their gods. Here the Thunderer was our king in the same way the Great King rules his empire. Men and women saw him every day, and those who did could speak to him if they dared. In just the same way, no doubt, the King of Nysa ruled that nation, which lies to the south of Riverland. If Odysseus had traveled so far, he might still have found him there, sitting his throne among the black men.
'Often the gods took the goddesses in their arms, and thus they fathered new gods. So Homer and Hesiod teach us, and they were skilled poets, the true enlightened singing-birds of the Shining God. Often too the gods deigned to couple with our race; then their offspring were heroes greater than men-but not wholly gods. In this fashion Heracles was born of Alcmene, for example.'
I nodded to show I understood.
'In time, the gods saw that there were no thrones for their children, or for their children's children.' Pindaros paused to look at the starry sky that mocked our little fire. 'Do you remember the farmhouse where we ate, Latro?'
I shook my head.
'There was a chair at the table where the farmer sat to eat. His daughter, that curly-headed imp who dashed about the house shouting, crawled into it while I watched. Her father didn't punish her for it, or even make her climb down; he mussed her hair instead and kissed her. So it was between the gods and their children, who became the kings of men. The kings of the Silent Country, to which we're being taken, still trace their proud lines from Alcmene's son. And if you were to travel east to the Empire instead, you'd find many a place where the Heraclids, the sons and daughters of Heracles, ruled not long ago; and a few where they rule yet, vassals of the Great King.'
I asked whether the farmer would not someday wish to sit in his chair again.
'Who can say?' Pindaros whispered. 'The ages to come are wisest.' After that he remained silent, stroking his chin and staring into the flames.
CHAPTER VI-Eos
The lady of the dawn is in the sky. I know her name because a moment ago as I unrolled this scroll she touched it with her shell-pink finger and traced the letters for me there. I have copied them just where she drew them-look and see.
I remember writing last night, and what I wrote; but the things themselves have vanished. I hope I wrote the truth. It is important to know the truth, because so soon what I write will be all I know.
Last night I slept only a little, though I rolled up this beautiful papyrus and tied it with its cords so I might sleep. One of the slaves of the Rope Makers woke me, sitting cross-legged beside me and shaking me by the shoulder.
'Do you know who I am?' he asked.
I told him I did not.
'I am Cerdon. I let you leave the road when you saw… '
He waited expectantly.
'I'm tired,' I told him. 'I want to sleep.'
'I could beat you-you know that? You've probably never had a real beating in your life.'
'I don't know.'
The anger drained from his face, though it still looked dark in the firelight. 'That's right, you don't, do you? The poet told me about you. Do you remember what you saw under the vines?'
It was lost, but I recalled what I had written. 'A black man, an old man and fat.'
'A god,' Cerdon whispered. His eyes sought the heavens, and in the clear night found innumerable stars. 'I'd never seen one before. I never even knew anybody who had. Ghosts, yes, many; but not a god.'
I asked, 'Then how can you be sure?'
'We danced. I too-I couldn't stand still. It was a god, and you saw him when none of the rest of us could. Then when you touched him, all of us could see him. Everyone knows what happened.'
Very softly the serpent woman hissed. She was beyond the firelight, but it gleamed in her eyes as in beads of jet. They said, 'Give him to me!' and I heard the scales of her belly like daggers drawn from their sheaths as she moved impatiently over the spring grass.
'No,' I said.
'Yes, we do,' Cerdon insisted. 'Then I saw him as I see you now. Except that he didn't look like you. He didn't look like any ordinary man.'
'No,' I said again, and let my eyes close. 'Do you know of the Great Mother?'
I opened them again, and because I lay face down with my head pillowed on my arms, I saw Cerdon's feet and the crushed grass on which he sat. The grass looked black in the firelight.
'No,' I said a third time. And then, 'Perhaps somewhere I have heard of her.'
'The Rope Makers call us slaves, but there was a time when we were free. We pulled the oars in the galleys of Minos, but we did it for silver and because we shared in his glory.'
Cerdon's voice, which had been only a whisper before, fell lower, so low I could scarcely hear him, though my ears were so near his lips. 'The Great Mother was our goddess then, as she is our goddess still. The Descender overcame her. That's what they say. He took her against her will, and such was his might that she bore him the Fingers, five boys and five girls. Yet she hates him, though he woos her with rain and rends her oaks to
