The King Must Die Read Online Free PDF

could tell that to.
    By the time my bones were mended, it was time for the shrine again. Simo had now learned some manners; but he remembered his bitten arm. Now he never used my name, but always "Son of Poseidon." He said it too smoothly, and we both knew what he meant
    When it was my turn to cleanse the sanctuary, I used to kneel afterwards by the spring, and whisper the god's name; and if any murmur answered, I would say softly, "Father, send me a sign."
    One day of midsummer, when I was ten years old, the noon stillness seemed heavier than I had ever known it. The grass of the grove was pale with drought; the mat of pine needles muffled every sound. No bird was singing; even the cicadas were dumb; the pine-tops stood unmoving against the deep blue sky, as stiff as bronze. When I wheeled in the tripod, its rattling seemed like thunder, and made me uneasy, I could not tell why. I trod soft-footed, and kept the vessels from chinking. And all the while I was thinking, "I have felt this before."
    I was glad to have done, and did not go to the spring, but straight outside, where I stood with my skin prickling. Kannadis' fat wife greeted me as she shook her blankets, and I was feeling better; when up came Simo and said to me, "Well, son of Poseidon? Have you been talking to Father?"
    So he had spied on me. Yet even this did not move me as at another time. What rubbed me raw was that he had not lowered his voice, though all the world seemed to be saying "Hush." It rasped me as if all my hair were being combed backwards; I said, "Be quiet."
    He kicked a stone, which set my teeth on edge. "I looked through the shutter," he said, "and saw the old woman naked. There's a wart on her belly."
    I could not endure his voice sawing at the stillness. The offended silence seemed to brood around us. "Go away!" I said. "Can't you feel Poseidon is angry?"
    He stared at me; then gave a jeering whinny. As it left his mouth, the air above us was loud with whirring wings. All the birds in the grove had left their trees, and hung above uttering their warning calls. At the sound I tingled all over, body, limbs, and head. I did not know what oppressed me so; but Simo's laughter was past bearing. I shouted, "Get out!" and stamped my foot.
    My foot struck the earth; and the earth moved.
    I felt a rumbling, and a sideways ripple, such as some huge horse's flank might give to shake off flies. There was a great noise of cracking timber, and the roof of the shrine came leaning down toward us. Men shouted, women shrieked, dogs barked and howled; the old cracked voice of Kannadis called on the god; and suddenly there was cold water all about my feet. It was pouring out from the sanctuary, from the rocks of the holy spring.
    I stood half dazed. In all the din, I felt my head clear and lighten, like the air after thunder. "It was this," I thought. "I felt it coming." Then I remembered how I had felt strange, and cried, when I was four years old.
    Everywhere in the precinct and beyond, people invoked Poseidon Earth-Shaker, and vowed him offerings if he would be still. Then close at hand I heard a voice weeping and bawling. Simo was walking backwards, his clenched fist pressed in homage to his brow, and crying, "I believe! I believe! Don't let him kill me!"
    As he blubbered, he backed into a slab of rock, and went down flat, and started to roar, so that the priests came running, thinking he was hurt. He went on babbling and pointing at me, while I stood too shaken to be glad, swallowing tears and wishing for my mother. The water was turning to mud about my toes. I stood in it, hearing the cries of the wheeling birds and Simo's sobbing, till old Kannadis came up and made the sign of homage. Then he stroked the hair from my forehead, and led me off by the hand.
    No one was killed in the earthquake; and of the houses cracked or broken, none fell right down. My grandfather sent the Palace workmen with two new columns for the Shrine; they mended the conduit of the holy