The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Naomi Mitchison

to be kept at home and made useful, working magic on her! Yersha hated magic: she could not do it herself, because of the quarter of Greek blood in her that made things too plain and too real to be twisted about in the Scythian way.

      Meanwhile Erif Der went on, along the main street of Marob, and across the flax market to her father’s house. Harn Der was standing in front of the hearth, jabbing the fire with the shaft of an old boar spear, so that quantities of smoke poured into the room, which was dark enough already. He was a short, thick man with hair and beard that bristled out all ways at once, and a leather coat and breeches. Erif Der stopped and blinked and rubbed her eyes. ‘Well, father,’ she said, ‘here I am.’ Her father left off stirring the fire and the smoke cleared; when her eyes stopped tingling she could see that her brother, Berris Der, was there too. As usual he had a hawk on his shoulder; equally as usual, he had something in his hands to play with, this time a strip of soft copper that he was bending and unbending, so that sometimes it looked more like a cup, and sometimes more like a flower, or a snake, or a bracelet. Berris Der was three years older than she was and they were not always interested in the same things; but still they smiled at one another rather more consciously than as simple relations. The girl came and stood by her father. ‘Well,’ she said again, looking at the fire rather than at him; ‘you wanted me?’

      Harn Der frowned at her. ‘You have to see and to know that it is time for your part in this,’ he said.

      Erif Der swung her foot uncomfortably, and the corners of her mouth twitched a little; all at once she looked much younger and less magic. ‘Still I don’t know how!’ she said. ‘Father, are you sure it has to be me?’

      ‘Little fool!’ said Harn Der, more gentle in voice than in words, ‘I shall be Chief of Marob before the end of the year, and remember, that will be you.’

      ‘But it’s so hard,’ said the girl, ‘first to marry him, and then to magic him, and then to unmarry him. I think I shall go wrong somewhere.’

      Harn Der answered, smiling to himself a little: ‘What are you afraid of?’

      ‘Myself. My own power.’

      ‘You should go and learn power instead of sitting on the beach and doing nothing—like your mother.’

      The girl’s mouth and bright eyes twisted into sudden laughter: ‘Much you know of learning magic, father!’

      ‘Would I use you if I knew myself, little vixen? Go, get on with my work! What was the use of Plowing Eve if you will not watch your furrow?’

      ‘Ah,’ said Erif Der lightly, shifting to the other foot, ‘I can tell you that. I think the Chief knows.’

      ‘I never told you to think!’ said her father, ‘besides— it’s not so. Tarrik is a fool: he cannot know.’

      ‘All the same—’ she said, then shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t know. Perhaps he is a fool.’

      ‘He is not that, then,’ said Berris Der suddenly, ‘he is the one of you all that knows what I am looking for, and if father’s plan was anyone else’s plan I should be well out of it! And remember, if you hurt Tarrik, I shall be out of it!’

      ‘Oh you, Berris,’ said his father, ‘if you don’t want to know you shouldn’t listen. And—for the hundred and first time—we are not going to hurt Tarrik. I know as well as you that it would be no good in the end: so long as he is Corn King. If I did not know it, couldn’t I have killed him twenty times over and been Chief by now? But that would have been for my harm and the harm of Marob as well. I am not going to hurt the corn. As it is, the Council will see that he goes, gently, for no one hates a madman, and then they will put me in his place and Marob will not be divided against itself.’

      ‘But I shan’t have to stay married to him?’ asked Erif Der anxiously.

      ‘Of course not. You will be the Chief’s daughter: to do whatever you and we choose. But listen: when I said Tarrik was a fool, I meant a fool in the way you thought he was wise. He does not know of the plan, still less that you are part of it. And as to the way Berris thinks he is wise, whatever that may be, it will not alter, and when I am Chief, Tarrik can work with Berris and they can both talk about beauty.’

      Erif Der shook her head, but said nothing and went over to a chest by the wall; she took out a coat of brown fur, a shade darker than her own hair, and put it on instead of the felt one, which she folded carefully and put away. Then she took a gold bracelet out, and tried it on her arm, first above, then below the elbow, pinching it into place; when it was high on her arm the sleeve hid it, but then, whenever she lifted her hand, it flashed out wonderfully. ‘Which is right, Berris?’ she said. Her brother frowned at her and walked out; she hesitated, changed the bracelet to the other arm, and ran after him, caught him up, and walked beside him, a pace behind.

      Harn Der looked after them, scratched his head, and after a little walked out into the flax market; he found one of his own farm people, who had been sent down to Marob to buy new milk jars, and was going back with the big red crocks slung over his shoulder; he said that everything was doing finely, the wheat well up, the flax and hemp high for the time of year, and there were two fat calves ready to be killed and sent down whenever they were wanted. Harn Der was pleased, thinking of his crops and his beasts; no one in Marob had better land than his, few had so much of it; and all good, sheltered, and well watered, away from the sea, but not so far from the town that the inlanders, the Red Riders, would ever come and raid it. In a few weeks he would be going down there with his wife and children, to live all summer in great yellow tents, with the birds and the beasts on the plains all round him, and the sun shining and the crops growing.

      But it was more than land he had, and better than gold. Every one in Marob knew him and thought of him always as wise and strong and a ruler of men; the elders had seen him at war, seen him guarding their land against the Red Riders in the days when Tarrik was only a child. A great archer was Harn Der then, and a great horseman; you could see the yellow tassel of his helmet a mile away across the fighting, when things were at their worst, and then back it would come to you and you would know that everything was going to be right and the Red Riders beaten and driven out of the fields you loved. That was Harn Der, and that was Harn Der’s eldest son, Yellow Bull, who was making himself new lands out of the swamps to the south of Marob and had built his house there, not in the walled town. Harn Der sighed, and went home again moodily, thinking of his sons and all he was doing for them.

      Berris and his sister were out of sight by now; they were walking fast and Erif Der was out of breath and a little angry. She took an odd-looking, small wooden star out of the front of her dress and held it for a few yards, then stopped for a moment, panting, and touched her brother’s hand. It’s very hot, isn’t it, Berris?’

      ‘Yes, I suppose,’ said Berris vaguely, slowing down, and took off his coat as he walked and trailed it from his hand till it dropped. ‘Very hot,’ he went on, and began pulling at his shirt, and, ‘very hot,’ his sister echoed, looking at him gravely. He pulled the shirt over his head and his felt cap dropped off with it; there was a brown line at the base of his neck where he stopped being sunburnt. The belt went with the shirt; he started just a little at the chink of the clasps falling on the road, but he was looking at Erif Der. Still walking slowly, he stepped out of his loose trousers. ‘So hot,’ he said again, and there was a film of sweat on his skin. He pushed back the hair from his forehead, and suddenly behind Erif Der there seemed to be a face staring at him, two, three faces. He stared back at them. They were opening their mouths to say words to him, his sister faded and they came real, and all at once he noticed, first, that he was really quite cold, and then that he had nothing on and all his clothes were straggling in little heaps down the road where he had dropped them.

      He stood and swore at the starers till they ran—they were all poor men, and he, in spite of everything, Harn Der’s son. Then he went up to Erif Der; she had her mouth tight shut and her cheeks pink; she tried to look him in the eyes again, but he was too angry for her now. Tick up my clothes,’ he said.

      ‘I won’t!’ said Erif Der, getting pinker.

      ‘Yes