LITMIR.BIZ

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was a spring of fresh water there, just at the top of the shingle, icy-cold to her feet, but she liked drinking from it, cheating, as it were, the salt of the sea. There were still occasional timbers being washed up from the ship that had been wrecked; she pulled one up, with horrid naked-looking barnacles dangling from it, and took some of them back, and shoved them in through the window of the forge for Berris to see. But Berris Der did not like them very much; he was after something fresh, something which could not be interpreted through any natural form. He was not sure what it was, only he knew that it was in some way intellectual, a beauty of the mind rather than the eye.

      As for Tarrik, it was as if part of him had suddenly been let loose. He went about with his eyes shining as if he were in love with a new girl: Sphaeros was teaching him philosophy. He had never done anything with that part of his mind before, and he admired himself enormously for the lucid and quick way that it was going. It had set to work on a whole new series of problems, and was tumbling about them like a puppy. Sphaeros found it restful, while he was still lying down and in some pain, to be able to give these very mild first lessons in the unreality of the physical universe, and to watch the disintegrating effect of the discovery that after all tables and chairs are only one sort of reality and that a not very interesting sort, on an intelligent mind which had never considered tables or reality before. Tarrik’s barbarian world of colour and smell and solidity broke up deliciously about him into a new freedom, a universe of appearance slithering round his head, a sense of time being within himself, not a mere black and white blinking of nights and days. For nearly a week, he revelled in this, while Sphaeros, gradually getting well, regarded him and waited for the reaction.

      It came, of course. His underneath mind had gone on working, following ideas to their conclusion, and then disconcertingly presenting them at odd moments in the shape of disturbing emotions. Tarrik woke up in the middle of the night and found he had lost his grip on everything and was left quite unrelated to life, dithering in the middle of this world of appearance, alone, alone. He turned over and caught hold of Erif Der. She was half awake, alone too, but in a different way. Her world was real enough still; but it had turned against her. She could not get far enough out of her own unhappiness to sympathise with his; wearily she let him kiss her and hug her close and tight. But it was less than no good, a mockery by stupid bodies, when their souls were withdrawn, each into its own void, too far away to make much effort, even to break through into ordinary life again.

      They turned away. Erif began to try and recapture part of her world again; it seemed to her that the ring of safety Sphaeros had unwittingly made round the Chief was not protecting Yersha. After a time she went to sleep, thinking of ways and means. But Tarrik lay quite still and astonished, almost afraid to move in case everything disappeared. If this went on there was no meaning in being Chief of Marob. He clutched for support at his godhead, being Corn King; but that seemed to be gone too; he was not even much interested in wondering what would happen to the crops. At last he quieted down to formulating a set of questions to ask Sphaeros the next morning.

      He had forgotten that there was to be a gathering of the soldiers that day, and he had to be dressed up with crown and sword, bronze rings on neck and arms, and a round gold shield like the sun. He was angry and impatient, and knocked down one of his men, who had scratched him with the edge of his breast-plate. It was only when they brought his horse that he calmed down and mounted, and went out through the square seaward door of his house. The men were drawn up between the house and the harbour in a great mass, roughly divided into squares, after the universally admired fashion of the Macedonian phalanx, but without the Macedonian discipline. Almost all had bows, and nearly half were mounted. When he came out they all shouted and waved their bows, and the horses reared and kicked, and everything got into a tangle. He scowled at them, considering that they must at least be treated as real, and gave orders, cursed them or praised them, and had up the headmen and captains and told them what they were doing wrong, sharply and definitely, as befitted the Chief. They loved him for being like that, and thought the curse was well off him; at least most of them did. But Harn Der had many friends, and they had come to certain conclusions and had decided to stay by them. Yellow Bull had brought his men to the gathering, and had come up with the other captains to see the Chief. Tarrik caught sight of him, rather at the back, and suddenly called him forward. ‘How is the road?’ he said; ‘I am not forgetting it, Yellow Bull. Give me time.’ Yellow Bull thanked him awkwardly. Nobody else seemed to be thinking of his road; it always made him feel a curious love for the Chief when he talked of it, as if they were sharing some secret.

      Sphaeros was trying to write; but the Chief’s house was not a really quiet place, except in Eurydice’s rooms, which he was always doing his best to keep out of. When Tarrik came clamouring in, lie sighed and gave it up in despair. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘this is the fear of Chaos, which is the first step to knowledge. I can cure you of fear.’

      ‘Can you?’ said Tarrik; ‘it is something real after all?’

      ‘It must be, or there would be nothing to know. Unless there were some standard, one could not even know that one does know. It is certain that the mirror image is less true than the thing itself, that the straightness of the rod is more proper to it than the crookedness we see in it when we look at it through water; so there must be degrees of unreality, until at last one comes down to certain appearances which are so undistorted that one may take them to be sure. It is these that seize upon the mind, and are in turn seized upon and turned into security: the Kataleptike Phantasia. They build the wall against unreality and the fearful place where a man may lose himself.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Tarrik, twisting a pen between his fingers until it broke, ‘and what then?’

      ‘If you have time and will listen,’ said Sphaeros, ‘I will try to explain.’ Then he showed Tarrik how it all hung together, this fear of unreality and a rushing on nowhither without reason, and uncertainty, and unfulfilled desire for happiness that in itself is unobtainable; and he showed how man’s will may be weaned from desire and folly, and made to go the way of nature, of things-as-they-are, not crossing the purpose of life, but going always with that reason that governs the movements of the stars and all the universe—through your own helping making yourself one with God.

      ‘Yes,’ said Tarrik suddenly, ‘that is how I help the sun to grow the corn!’

      Then Sphaeros spoke of the wills of kings, and how they, above all, should follow the good; and he talked of choice and duty, and the ways that are always open before any action. And he told Tarrik stories of kings, the wise and the unwise, and what came to their kingdoms. So they went on, day after day.

      Tarrik found he was quite able to split himself into two people; one a Greek, who was an interested, if not always consistent, Stoic, with a vast amount of moral and philosophic curiosity which had never been satisfied before; and the other a barbarian god-king, who made the flax and wheat grow in a very small place called Marob, which nobody had ever heard of except wholesale merchants and ships’ captains, whose beginnings had been odd and dubious and something to do with his dead father and a ceremonial feast, and whose end was better unthought of for the moment. This was all very amusing. But Tarrik was distinctly aware of Harn Der and the possibilities of something unpleasant. However he was fairly clear that his luck was back now—if all went well at Plowing Eve. And he had given orders to his guard, whom he knew to be faithful, to follow not too far behind when he went out. If it came to anything open, he backed himself against Harn Der and half the Council. As to Erif— well, she was queer and unanswering nowadays. He began to look about for something better, but only half-heartedly; for the moment his mind was not on women.

      And then a small trading-ship came into harbour. She was a squat, patch-sailed creature, that every one knew; she used to trade up and down the coast, even in winter, from one small harbour to another, never getting far out, or taking risks. She was going south now, and would probably fetch up at Byzantium in about a month if the weather was possible. Sphaeros said: ‘I must go.’ And he went down to arrange with the captain.

      Tarrik knew not only that Sphaeros must go, but also that he would. He did not say anything at once, nor did he follow his first impulse—to have the captain strangled quietly, or the ship sunk. He considered what was the Good, and when Sphaeros came back from the harbour he said: ‘I think I might

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