"Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

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He ceased. Looking up, I saw him staring out between the red pillars of the window, at the dark-blue line
of the sea. We sat some while, he playing with my hair as a man will scratch his dog to quiet it, lest its
importunities disturb his thoughts. But I had no word to say to him. The seed is still, when first it falls into
the furrow.

At last he sat up with a start, and looked at me. "Well, well, child, the omens said I should reign long. But
sometimes they talk double; and too early's better than too late. All this is heavy for you. But the man in
you challenged it, and the man will bear it." He got up rather stiffly from his chair, and stretched, and
strode to the doorway; his shout echoed down the twisted stair. Presently Diokles running up from below
said, "Here I am, sir."

"Look at this great lad here," my grandfather said, "growing out of his clothes, and nothing to do but sit
with the house dogs, scratching. Take him away, and teach him to ride."

2

Next year, I began my service to Poseidon. For three years I went to Sphairia one month out of four,
living with Kannadis and his fat old wife in their little house at the edge of the grove. My mother used to
complain that I came back spoiled past bearing.

It was true I came home rough and noisy. But I was only breaking out after the quiet. When you serve a
holy place, you can never forget, even in sleep, that the god is there. You cannot keep from listening.
Even on a bright morning, with birds in song, there are hushing whispers. Except at the festival, no one
cares to be too loud in a precinct of Poseidon. It is like whistling at sea. You might start more than you
bargained for.

I remember many days like one: the hush of noonday; the shadow of the thatch falling straight and sharp;
no sound but a cicada out in the hot grass, the restless pine-tops, and a far-off sea-hum like the echo in a
shell. I swept the floor round the sacred spring, and scattered clean sand; then took the offerings laid on
the rock beside it, and put them in a dish for the priests and servers to eat. I wheeled out the great bronze
tripod, and filled its bowl from the spring, dipping the water out in a jug shaped like a horse's head. When
I had washed the sacred vessels, and dried them in clean linen, and set them out for the evening offerings,
I poured off the water into an earthen jar that stood under the eaves. It is healing, especially for tainted
wounds, and people come a long way to get it.

There was a wooden image of Poseidon on the rock, blue-bearded, holding a fish-spear and a horse's
head. But I soon came not to notice it. Like the old Shore Folk who worshipped the Sea Mother under
the open sky there, killing their victims on the bare rock, I knew where the deity lived. I used to listen in
the deep noon shadow, quiet as the lizards on the pine trunks; sometimes there would be nothing but a
wood-dove's coo; but on another day, when the hush was deepest, there would sound far down in the
spring a great throat swallowing, or a great mouth smacking its lips together; or sometimes only a long
thick breath.

The first time I heard, I dropped the cup back in the bowl, and ran out between the painted columns into
the hot sun, and stood panting. Then came old Kannadis, and put his hand on my shoulder. "What is it,