Chapter 1: The bull from the sea

Late in the deep night before the morning of the bull, the eyes of Hero's Son First blinked open and taught him the difference between sleep and waking.
There was no light, and no sound except for Hero Granddaddy's old man snore, which sounded like a lonely wind.
When First understood he was awake, he immediately spoke his Name to himself, to let all the Stealer Daemons know he knew who he was and where he belonged.
First whispered,

Rethymna ma'timinthos peha peha ma'timinthos ken thamato manthero.

Which to First was also his Life Story. Everything First was going to live was in that story. He had only gotten to the Rethymna part, which was the Story of his first seven circles of the seasons. Hero Mommy had spoken him that part. What does it mean? he'd asked Mommy. You'll see, she'd said.
"First," came a voice from across the room. It was Hero Daddy. "It is not time to be waking."
"But the bull..."
"The watchmen on duty are looking for the torch. You don't have to look for the torch."
"But my eyes want me to be awake, Daddy," said First.
"I think your eyes want to see the torch," said Daddy.
"Yes, Daddy." Daddy was always right, because he was a Hero, a man who walked the snake circle in the House-towards-the-Evening. Someday First would always be right, because he would be a Hero too, and walk the snake, and tell Tells.
"I tell your eyes to teach you sleep, darling First," said Daddy.
"Is it a very powerful Tell, Daddy?"
"Even now it's working, child."
First yawned. "It will have to be a big one, Daddy," he said. "Because my eyes..." First was going to say, my eyes don't want to teach me. But his eyes had already taught him.

No dream came to First in the hours between Daddy's tell and the moment when his eyes taught him the circle of the sun was just about to show, just about to show. He spoke his Name to himself, and above him in the loft he heard Hero Young Sister speaking her Daytime Name in her piping bird young sister voice.
"Is it the bull?" He asked her.
Daddy pulled the rush screen from the doorway with a sound like Mommy hushing him.
"First," he said, "Come."
"I want to go," said Young.
"I tell that daemon to be patient," said Daddy.
"That Tell does not work on that daemon," said Young. You have seen six circles, girl child, Daddy always said. But you seem to have seen sixteen.
"Hush," said Mommy in her sleepy voice.
"That is a big tell," Daddy said with a sound of approval. "That is a bigger tell than I can tell."
First scrambled to his feet, threw off his sleeping cloak, and his legs taught him how to run.
"I have your day cloak," said Daddy, behind him.
First said, "The circle of the sun is my cloak."
The path was easy to find in the old dark. On both sides were houses with walls of hard brick, and the dirt of the path was beaten smooth by many feet. In no time he was at the gate, and the gray beard of the darkness in the east was being shaved, only just beginning to be shaved, by the sickle of the sun.
The man on duty stopped him at the gate.
"Who passes?" he said.
It was Leather Man Son Fifth, who had made his sea walk to the island only a few weeks before. He was wearing a bone cap with a copper nose, the one his family had given him for his thirteenth birthday, and carried a spear and a hide shield. First liked that cap, but he knew that because he was of the Hero folk he would never wear a cap or carry a spear and shield.
"Has a daemon taken your sense?" said First. "You're supposed to ask that of the people coming in, not out."
"You're a little brat, Hero First," said Leather Fifth.
"My daddy is walking the snake behind me," said First. "You had better stand aside or he will tell you something big."
But Leather Fifth took the butt end of his spear and quickly lifted First's legs out from under him. For a second, there was nothing but air surrounding First's body. Then with a thump, First hit the ground.
"Ha, I told you to fly," said Leather Fifth. "How heavy is my ash spear," he chanted. "How heavy is my spear won from the hills and the mountains."
First shed tears, because his knee was teaching him pain. "You have a bad daemon," he told Fifth, and thought about spitting at him.
"First," came a voice.
First stood up and brushed himself off, and the sickle of the sun told them that Daddy was turning his snake walk as fast as the snake would let him.
"First," he called. "Stay with me."
"Daddy," said First, still rubbing his knee. "Leather Fifth has a bad daemon."
Daddy stood before Fifth and took him by the chin, looking him in the eye. "Are you fit to be on duty?" he asked.
Yes, Hero Father," said Fifth, but his shaky voice made him sound like he wasn't.
"Upon my great grandfather and all his sons," said Daddy. "Sporting with children. What are you going to do, Fifth, when a real enemy comes to the gate that the people of Tirynthos built with such care?"
"I'm sorry, Hero Father."
"I will speak to your father. It is a good thing I was the only one to hear the shame you did my son. But I think a hard reed will teach you tonight."
First heard Fifth swallow on his own spit.
"As for you," Daddy said, turning to First, "Haven't I taught you to respect the men on duty?"
First said nothing, just wiped his face dry.
"Stay with me," said Daddy.

Fifth pulled half the gate back on its hinges, and Daddy walked the snake again, describing half-circles in the dust, because circles are important.
First decided to walk the snake behind Daddy, for practice. They walked past a thicket of fennel, twice as big as First and teaching his nose and stomach how to tickle itself. He picked up a dry fennel stick, and though he wanted to use it as a walking stick, his hands seemed to want to snap it in many pieces. Someday, he thought to himself, when he was a Hero Daddy, he would tell such a big tell on Leather Fifth that his eyes would bleed.
"Don't plot anger against Leather. He is jealous of you," said Daddy. He was reading First's thoughts again. Heroes do that all the time. "He wants to see the bull come up, just like your sister. But it was his turn at the gate."
First tried to put his foot in the footprints Daddy made. Daddy's feet were much bigger.
"You will go to the Leatherman house and say you are sorry for disrespecting Fifth."
Daddy was going to teach First everything about circles. First was the circle of the sun, which was soon going to be a half-circle on the sea, having cut the dark's beard. Second was the circle of the snake, that lives forever. Third was the circle of the ox, that plows the field and comes back again. He knew all of these circles by heart, and Daddy was about to teach him the next three circles.
"Do you understand, child?"
"Yes, daddy."
"Let go of the stick. You are not a spearman; that is not your way, Rethymne."
Because Daddy had used his Name, and that was more important than a powerful Tell, First let go of the stick and concentrated on walking the snake like Daddy. It was not a long walk to the sea, but Daddy went slowly, and the circle of the sun was red passing to orange and lighting the mirror of the sea when they came to the rocky shore. There was a deep place in the water, and some of their people's skiffs were already out there, waiting for the boat of the Trade People. It was their torch on the water that the watch on duty had seen.

Grandfather said that the fishermen of the people smelled the sea different from the heroes of the people. "To the fishers," Grandfather said, "The sea smells like the breast of one's mother after a babe has sucked a long time and the nipple is wet with the mingling of her milk and the milk the babe has spit back on it. But to the hero, the sea smells like salt, like dinner."
First smelled the sea and was hungry. He hoped that when they got back there would be a big round of warm bread to tear, with brown spots like the hide of an ox. Later on, because of the bull, there would be goat's and sheep's meat on spits, and roasted fennel, soft on the inside and still smelling like the roots of the earth.

Out past the cup of the harbor, a boat with oars plashed the mirror of the sea. The mast had been taken down. Someone in the front was holding the torch, dim now in the first light of the sun. It would be a good hot day, no clouds, a day for barley to ripen. The circle of the seasons was going round, grain harvest time soon, then the hot time, then vine harvest time, then the olive harvest time, the rainy time and the cold time, then the time of flowers, and barley ripening time, and again. Grandfather taught him that one day, as they walked out to the fields to bless the reapers.
First counted four oars on each side of the Trade People boat. It was not a skiff, but a house for the sea, with a deep bottom that held all the things of the Trade People.
The Head Trade Man was standing in the bow with the Torch Man. The oarsmen were plashing the sea. The bull must have been in the deep bottom of the house for the sea.
The boat glided into the cup of the harbor. Daddy stood on the shore with his arms crossed, with the Head Fisher at his side and the other Fisher Daddies also there. The oarsmen shipped their oars. The navigator in the back threw his great paddle out, and the boat turned broadside.
First saw the bull. Only the head and the neck, which had a rope around it. The bull was chewing. On its muzzle, a splotch of white, the rest black.

The Head Fisher said under his breath to Daddy, "This is not much more than a calf this time."
First was not thinking this at all. He was thinking that when the bull came out of the boat it would be very big, because the Tell of the earth would change it from the Tell that made it small on the sea.
"You were not thinking, Fisher," Daddy said, "That this would be the Bull of Tlas?"
"You speak well," said Fisher. "May that bull stay far in its own field."
For a moment the breeze freshened from the place of the evening, and taught First the smell of Lerna, the place of rushes not far from them. It smelled like wet dirt and a heifer's fart.
Daddy must have smelled it, too, because he chanted, "Lerna, place of rushes, in thee is life and death the wedding day."

The boat was now close to shore, and all the oarsmen jumped out to beach it. Like the folk of Tirynthos their skin was dark and their hair curly black, but their noses were narrower and faces longer, and they all wore loin cloths with the pattern of square next to square. Some of the people in Tirynthos had much of this cloth and loved to wear it on feast days. Leather Fifth had an evening cloak of it that was so warm he could go in the hills and the mountains with it in the deeps of the cold season. The Leatherman family had many possessions.
Some of the fishermen waded into the shallow, and they all pushed the boat into the best groove on the beach, where the boat would stand up and lean only a little to the evening. It came a-crunch into the stones, like a little child of the thunder.
The navigator pulled up a gangplank from the hold. The bull continued to chew, dipping its head now and then to pull fodder from some manger below.
When the plank was set, the Head Trade Man and his torch man walked down, and the Head Fisher put his two hands in the hands of the Head Trade Man. Then, the fishermen put their hands in the hands of the oarsmen.
"Head Fisher?" said the Trade Man in the tongue of the Tirynthos. "I am Wewaios, son of Dewaios, trader among the people of the western coasts."
"Where is Keredrewos?" asked the Head Fisher. "Is he well? I was expecting him"
"He is well. He sent me himself. I am his mother's cousin. He must be down by Rhadamanthys now. We have put him out farther now. Tirynthos is not so far out for us now."
The Head Fisher laughed. "Business is good."
"May it be," said Wewaios. "Upon the snake of life."
"You speak well," said the Head Fisher.
He then walked up the beach to where Daddy stood, and held out both hands. Daddy touched them both with his right hand. "You speak well for someone who has never been to Tirynthos before."
"May it be," said Wewaios, and he clapped his hand, and said something to his torch man that sounded like a stream running. The torch man turned and gestured to the oarsmen. In no time they were in the boat, moving the bull.
Then they all broke into song, clapping their hands together as they sung, and First saw something he hadn't expected. When the bull stood with his front hooves on the gangplank, an oarsman reached down and pulled a boy up, then seated him on the bull, with both feet on the side. He was no bigger than First himself, and his face was grave, as if he had never smiled or laughed before in his life. He was wearing a long day cloak of square next to square, and the oarsmen put on his head a wreath of oak leaves.
Another oarsman led the bull down, and the boy held onto the shoulder blade of the animal, his eyes down so that his eyelashes fanned out on his dark cheek.

"Daddy--" First began.
"Hush," said Daddy. "They are singing."
The bull tossed its head twice, then moved down the plank and onto the beach. The oarsmen led the bull up to Daddy, and as the bull came closer First tried to Tell the boy to open his eyes and look. But he would not.
The song went on for some time, with the boy looking down, and the song started to teach First's body to shiver and his throat to want to cry out.
"Daddy..." First said, tugging at Daddy's day cloak.
"Hush, child."
"But Daddy..."
"Hush."
"But you didn't tell me..."
"It is a surprise," said Daddy. "This is your new Guest."

Suddenly the boy looked up, straight at First, and First could see a little daemon of Fear hopping up and down in the black eyes.
So First knew what to do. He began the first real Tell that he ever told in his life.