The King Must Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

born in my year and season. Only one of them was smaller than I. There were even girls who were taller. I began to be silent, and to brood.
    All these six boys, as I saw it, were threats to my honor. If I could not outgrow them, I must prove myself some other way. So I would challenge them to dive between steep rocks, to poke wild bees' nests and run, to ride the kicking mule or steal eggs from eagles. If they said no, I would make them fight. These contests I won, having more at stake than the others, though I never said so. Thereafter we could be friends, for me. But their fathers complained of me, that I led them into danger; and I was never two days running out of a scrape.
    One day I saw old Kannadis walking home from Troizen, and overtook him near the ford. He shook his head and said he heard sad tales of me; but I could see he was pleased I had run after him. Taking heart from this, I said, "Kannadis, how tall are the sons of the gods?"
    He peered at me sharply with old blue eyes, then patted my shoulder. "Who can say? That would be making laws for our betters. The gods themselves can be what size they choose; Paian Apollo once passed as a shepherd lad. And King Zeus himself, who got mighty Herakles, another time went courting as a swan. His wife had swan-children, curled up in eggs, as little as that."
    "Then," I said, "how do men know if they are god-begotten?"
    He brought down his white brows. "No man can knew. Still less may he claim it. Certainly the gods would punish his pride. He could only seek for honor as if it might be true, and wait upon the god. Men are not asked to know such things; heaven sends a sign."
    "What sign?" I asked. But he shook his head. "The gods will be known, when they are ready."
    I thought much about this matter of honor. Talaos' son, climbing out on a limb which bore my weight but not his, got a broken arm, and I a beating. The god sent no sign; so it seemed he was not satisfied.
    Behind the stables was the pen of the Palace bull. He was red as a pot, with short straight horns and a look of Simo. We boys liked teasing him through the palings, though the bailiff would clip us if he caught us at it. One day we had been watching him serve a cow and the show was over, when it came into my head to jump down in the bull pen and dodge across.
    He was quiet after his pleasure, and I got away easily; but it made a stir among the boys, which was enough to send me back next day. The life I had been living had made me hard and wiry and quick-footed; and when other boys out of emulation joined the game, I was still the master. I chose my band from those who were slight and spry; we would play the bull two or three together, the envy of the rest, while someone watched out for the bailiff.
    The bull too was learning. Soon before we were on the fence he would be pawing the ground. My troop grew shy, till at last the only boy who would go in with me was Dexios, the Horse Master's son, who feared nothing four-footed. Even we two liked to have the others drawing off the bull's eye before we jumped. One day, waiting his moment, young Dexios slipped, and fell in while the beast was watching.
    He was a boy younger than I, who followed my lead and liked me. I saw what must happen, and all through my fault. Being at my wits' end what else to do, I leaped down on the bull's head.
    What happened I don't well remember, or how it felt, or if I expected to die. By luck I grasped him by the horns; and, being as new to this as I was, he rid himself of me carelessly. I flew up, struck my belly on the top of the fence and hung, felt the boys grab me, and was down on the other side. Meanwhile Dexios had climbed out, and the noise had brought the bailiff.
    My grandfather had promised me the thrashing of my life. But seeing, when he had me stripped, that I was black and blue as if I had had it already, he felt me over, and found two broken ribs. My mother cried, and asked what had possessed me. But she was not the one I