The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Naomi Mitchison

he said, ‘that’s bad. You’d better melt it down, Berris.’

      At that Berris coloured, but still held the buckle steady in the flame. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘suppose you know nothing at all about it?’

      ‘Has our handsome friend Epigethes been here? Has he?’ asked Tarrik. ‘I thought so.’ He looked across the fire at Erif Der, blowing the bellows, with the bracelet on one arm and the star tight in the other hand. He began to sing at her, very low, in time with her movements, a child’s rhyme about little ships with all kinds of pretty ladings. And still she was not sure if he was laughing at her or making love to her. The fire on the forge between them nearly stopped her from working on him.

      The gold was hot and soft by now; it would not crack. Berris Der took it out and across to the bench. ‘It’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad,’ said Tarrik, leaning over, ‘it’s like a little Greek making a face.’ And suddenly Erif Der found that she liked Tarrik. That was so surprising that she nearly dropped the star; because she had never really thought of her own feelings before. There was she, Harn Der’s daughter and a witch; so of course she would do everything she could for her father and brothers. And there was the Chief, who was to have the magic done on him, to be her husband for a few months—because that was part of it—but never, somehow, to get into her life. But if she liked him it would all be much harder. Quickly, fear came swamping into her mind; she wanted to stop, to run away. She began to creep out, very quietly, slinking along the walls of the forge. But Berris wanted his gold heated again; he called her to blow the fire, angrily, because he was working badly and because he hated Tarrik to tell him so. She went back, her head in the air, pretending to herself and every one else that she knew exactly what she wanted. But while she blew she got fuller of panic every moment. If she could not run, at any rate something must happen!

      Tarrik was talking to Berris Der very gently, spinning his bow on its end or playing a sort of knuckle-bones with odd pieces of wood. Most of the time he was abusing Epigethes, quite thoroughly, with maddeningly convincing proofs of everything he said. Sometimes Berris wanted not to hear, to be too deep in what he was doing, and sometimes he answered back, violently, trying to stop it. ‘He’s the first Greek artist who’s ever had the goodness to come here,’ he said, ‘and this is all the welcome he gets! You—you who should have some feeling for Hellas—you haven’t even the common decency to be civil to him the first time you meet. And you don’t even manage to frighten him, you just make a fool of yourself—and a fool of Marob in all the cities of the world.’

      ‘Not if the corn we send them stays good,’ said Tarrik, rather irritatingly.

      ‘Corn! You used to care for beauty. But when beauty comes to us you won’t even look.’

      ‘And you won’t look beyond a pretty tunic and a Greek name. Well, I’ve got a Greek name too, call me by it and see if you don’t pay more attention to what I say.’

      ‘You fool, Tarrik!’

      ‘Charmantides.’

      ‘You—God, I’m over-heating it!’ He snatched the buckle out of the fire and back to the window.

      Tarrik followed him: ‘But if you do—isn’t it bad and getting worse? Berris, look at it, look at it fresh, what’s all this nonsense here, all this scratching, what is it about? There’s no strength in it—oh, it is a bad little buckle! What else have you made?’

      ‘Nothing, nothing—I never have! All the beauty goes, the beauty goes between my eye and my hand! Oh, it’s no use!’ And suddenly he saw how bad it really was and dropped the hammer, let go of everything, and sat with his hands fallen at his sides and his forehead on the edge of the bench.

      ‘Stop!’ said Tarrik. ‘Get up! Listen to me. I’m being Charmantides now. I’m just as good a Greek as Epigethes and I don’t want to be paid for my lesson. I’m good Greek enough to know it’s not something—something magic,’ he said, looking round, a little startled, as if that had not been quite the thing he meant to say. ‘There’s no use our copying Hellas; we haven’t the hills and the sun. You know, Berris, that I’ve been there, I’ve seen these cities of yours, and I would see them again gladly if I could, if I were not Chief here. And they are not so very wonderful; they are not alive as we are, and always I thought they were in bond. They pretend all the time, they even think they are free, but truly they are little and poor and peeping from side to side at their masters, Macedonia on one side, Egypt and Syria the other. Hellas is old, living on memories—no food for us. Turn away from it, Berris.’

      ‘Then you think my buckle is as bad as all that?’ asked Berris mournfully, bringing it all, of course, to bear on his own work.

      ‘Look for yourself,’ said Tarrik. ‘Take it as a whole. You don’t know what you want. Is it a copy of life, less real, or a buckle for a belt? Which did you think of while you were making it?’

      And so they might go on talking for hours and nothing would happen. Erif Der stood at the side of the forge, hands gripping elbows, her eyes full of reflected flames. ‘Tarrik!’ she said, loud and suddenly, ‘is that all you have to say?’ Both men stopped and turned round and looked at her. The light of the forge flickered on her cheeks and long plaits and the front of her throat, coming up, pale and soft out of the rough linen of her dress. Her mouth was a little open; there was a pattern round her feet. Berris stayed by the bench, but Tarrik dropped his bow, and came forward two steps. Aloud, he said, ‘Erif Der, I love you, I want to marry you.’ He reached out towards her, but she was in a circle of her own and would not move from it; only he could hear her breathing gustily, as if she had been running; his own hammering heart sounded plainer still.

      She did not answer him, but Berris did, with a question: ‘Do you? Will you marry her?’

      ‘No—yes,’ said Tarrik, his hands up to his head, pressing the crown down on to his hair, half covering his ears.

      Erif Der threw up her hands with a little cry, loosing him. ‘I did it!’ she said, ‘I did it, Chief! Well? Am I clever?’ She stepped out of her circle.

      ‘Why did you tell me?’ said Tarrik softly. ‘When will you let me go?’

      ‘But I have!’ she cried. ‘Now say—say what you really want!’

      ‘I want the same thing,’ said Tarrik and pulled her over to him. She ducked, butting at him, clumsily, childishly, with head and fists, and got kissed on her neck and face and open mouth, maddeningly, and found nothing to shove against, nothing that would stay still and be fought; so that suddenly she went quiet and limp in his arms, and, as suddenly, he let her go. She had trodden on Tarrik’s bow; the string snapped; he picked it up. ‘Witch,’ he said, ‘I shall go to Harn Der, and then I shall marry you.’

      ‘I give my leave,’ said Berris hastily, ‘and so will father.’ But no one listened to him.

      ‘Very well,’ said Erif Der. ‘Now listen, Tarrik. I will magic you as much as I please and you will not be able to stop me!’

      ‘Go on, then,’ said Tarrik, ‘but there are some other things I shall do that you will not be able to stop.’ She smoothed her plaits and stroked her hot face with her own familiar palms. ‘You’ll see,’ she said, and went out. But it was all very well when Berris pulled her hair; next time it would be Tarrik, who was much stronger. She knew her magic depended on herself and could be as much broken as she was; never mind, the sun had come out again, the sea smell swept up the streets of Marob, fresh and strong. She went back to the flax market, half running; father would be pleased with her, she must tell him quick. And how soon could Yersha possibly be got out of the Chiefs house?

      Tarrik and Berris Der were still talking. When she had gone, they had dropped back at once to where they had left off, Berris wondering, startled at the way it had come, thinking of his father and not liking to talk about it to Tarrik, because it would have been bound to be all lies. But Tarrik felt wonderfully light, leaping from one thing to another in his airy mind. He had always been rather like this; he knew how it angered the Council and Harn Der, but now it was all marvellously accentuated. He knew that he was free,