heavily in his stupor--that he did not know of her approach until she
spoke. Then Robert raised his heavy, weary head and stared at her,
dazed, while she looked sadly at the twisted visage of the fool. Then
consciousness came back to Robert, and he knew Perpetua, and his heart
rejoiced within him.
"You! you!" he cried, hopefully. "Do you not know me?"
Perpetua looked pitifully at the ill-favored face. Who that had once
seen it could fail to remember it, she thought; so she answered, gently,
"Indeed I do."
Robert rose stiffly to his feet and held out his hands to her eagerly.
In the moonlight his face seemed to her more hideous than even she had
thought it in the morning, and she drew away from him involuntarily, but
he paid no heed to this, thinking only of her words.
"Ah, Heaven be praised!" he sighed. "You know I am the King."
Instantly Perpetua remembered the fool's tale of the morning--how he had
played at being the King and was menaced with death for his mimicry. She
felt sure that the moon had overthrown his weak wits, and that he had
now come to believe, in his madness, that he was, indeed, the King. But
Robert plied her eagerly.
"You remember," he insisted, "a while ago, in the sunlight, how I told
you who I was? I am the King."
He drew himself up proudly, and his air of dignity contrasted so grimly
with his wry figure that Perpetua, who had found no tears for her own
grief, was ready to weep for him. So she answered him according to his
folly, hoping to soothe him.
"Yes, yes, I remember," she murmured, touched to the heart by the
trouble in his wild eyes. "But you seem sick and faint. Shall I bring
you some water?"
She made as if to leave him, to seek for water, but he stayed her with a
gesture, speaking rapidly, in a low voice that seemed charged with fear.
"There is a strange conspiracy against me"--he paused, as if trying to
command his fevered thoughts, and pressed his hands to his forehead--"or
else I have been dreaming a strange dream." He looked around him
drearily, and then again fixed his questioning gaze upon her. "But
you--you know me?"
"Yes, yes, I know you," Perpetua answered him, gently; but to herself
she said, "Poor soul! poor soul!" and she wondered what she could do to
help the afflicted thing. If her father had returned he would know what
to do--or one of the holy brothers of the Church. Even while she
reflected two forms rose against the sky, coming from the pathway, giant
figures with skins like burnished copper, clad with a barbaric splendor,
with pelts of leopards over their shoulders, and having great rings of
gold upon their arms and in their ears.
"This is the place," said one; and, "Knock at the door," ordered the
other. Perpetua stepped out of the shadow of the trees towards them.
Robert, following her action with his eyes, saw the men and knew them,
amazed, for his Moorish slaves Zal and Rustum. He asked himself why they
were there, and could not answer the question; yet some memory seemed to
be trying to assert itself in his troubled brain, and he watched what
followed vaguely as one shackled by sleep.
"What do you seek?" Perpetua asked of the new-comers.
The one who had spoken last questioned her.
"Are you the daughter of Theron the executioner?"
"I am she," Perpetua answered.
The other black giant spoke.
"You must come with us. Your father has sent for you. He lies sick at
Syracuse."
Perpetua gave a great cry.
"My father sick! I will go with you at once."
The sound of her cry seemed to rend the veil of forgetfulness that hung
about the brain of Robert. He knew now why these men had come, sent by
Hildebrand in obedience to his King's command. For the first time in his
foolish life Robert felt his heart throb with pity, his spirit rise in
arms against injustice. The girl who had disdained him in his pride had
been kind to him in his misery; she should suffer no wrong from him. He
limped into the open space and waved the Saracens aside with a gesture
of command, while he called to Perpetua:
"No, no; do not go with them. It is a trick, a lie." Advancing fiercely
upon the slaves, who stared at the sudden appearance of the discredited
jester, he cried out: "I have changed my mind. Begone!" Then, reading
only derision and denial on their countenances, he raged at them.
"Do you not know me, fellows? I am the King!"
The black slaves grinned evilly. One of them turned to Perpetua, who, in
her eagerness to join her father, listened with impatience to the
grotesque assertions of the fool.
"Come, maiden, come," he said. "There is no time to lose." Then as
Robert interposed himself between the girl and the slave, the slave
roared at him, "Out of the way, fool!"
Robert felt his members tremble at the ferocity of the monster who was
wont to kiss his hand, but he stood his ground.
"She shall not go," he said.
"I say she shall," the black answered, and with his huge hand he dealt
Robert a blow that beat him brutally to the earth. Perpetua sprang
forward to prevent further cruelty, but the slave paid no further heed
to the prostrate man. Catching Perpetua by the hands, they hurried her
at full speed down the mountain-path to the place where a litter was
waiting.
Robert lay alone on the summit of the hill, dizzy with pain and rage,
beating the earth with his clinched fists and moaning to himself: "I am
the King! I am the King! I am the King!"
VIII
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN
A little way from the city Lycabetta had found, dedicated to our Lady of
Delights, a fitting shelter for herself and for her attendant nymphs.
This was the palace of a dead and heirless duke, somewhile abandoned and
now renewed with life and color by the gold of the Neapolitan. It stood
apart in spacious gardens that were girdled so thickly with groves of
cypresses that none save the initiated could dream of the wonders masked
by the melancholy trees. But those initiated knew well that behind the
solemn barrier there smiled a kind of earthly paradise--pleasances where
even the flowerful soil of Sicily seemed extravagantly prolific of
color, extravagantly prodigal of odors; thickets wherein the great god
Pan might have delighted to lurk; fair colonnades thick-carpeted with
the petals of roses and framed to greet all cool, benevolent breezes;
temples to exquisite divinities; fountains lapsing, murmurous as the
laughter of youth, into great basins whose smooth waters welcomed smooth
bodies; grottoes deep and mysterious, affording shelter in the fiercest
heats. To these enchanted privacies the young and rich who had followed
Robert from Naples and had welcomed his coming to Sicily made
pilgrimage, and day and night pleasure held there her pagan court as if
the wild cry had never been heard by Thamus, the pilot, calling from the
islands of Paxae and heralding the coming of the white Christ.
On this night the House of Pleasure was unusually quiet. Those who
guarded the golden gates denied admission to all who could not conjure
with the King's name, and Lycabetta was alone with her favorite women,
fair, Greek-faced girls with fair, Greek names--Glycerium, Hypsipyle,
Euphrosyne, Lysidice. The room that shrined her beauty was a marvellous
medley of the styles of many architectures, of the arts of many lands,
as if the streams of wealth and splendor flowing from all the sources of
the world had carried thither its rarest treasures. Greece, Rome,
Byzantium, the genius of the Saracen, and the vigor of the Norman had
shared in the decoration of those walls, gorgeous with gold and color,
hung with sumptuous tapestries woven with alluring figures from the
legends of love. The floor, inlaid with iridescent tiles that Persian
hands had painted, was strewn with costly stuffs and furs. Before a
life-size statue in bronze of Venus, a copy of that Venus Callipyge
given by Heliogabalus to Syracuse, a fire of shifting, many-tinted
flames burned on a metal tripod, whose stems represented the figures of
beautiful, nude women. The air was heavily scented from the burning
woods and spices in the brazier, sandal and cinnamon and cassia. Hanging
lamps, of strangely fantastic design, filled the wide room with delicate
light.
Lycabetta, the triumphant jewel of all this gorgeous setting, reclined
upon a golden couch that was made soft for her body with rare furs, and
bright--to enhance her whiteness--with brilliant silks. Clad in thin,
transparent webs, whose shifting shimmer recalled, whenever she stirred
her limbs, the glitter of the serpent, Lycabetta lay with a look of
weariness on her face, while Hypsipyle fanned her softly with a huge
feather fan of black and white ostrich plumes. Glycerium, seated by the
head of the couch, was busy in adorning her mistress's black hair with
flowers. At her feet Euphrosyne nursed a kind of lute and sang the Venus
song in a small, sweet voice:
"Venus whispered from her nest:
'White Adonis, bright Adonis!
Love is better than the best,
Heaven is hidden in my breast,
Take delight and leave the rest,
Blithe Adonis, lithe Adonis!'
"Venus stretched her arms and said:
'Shy Adonis, sly Adonis!
Gather blooms and make a bed
Of the scented petals shed
By the roses, white and red,
Brisk Adonis, frisk Adonis!'
"Venus murmured with a sigh:
'Dumb Adonis, numb Adonis!
Fast the golden moments fly,
Love and let the world go by,
Be a god before you die,
Child Adonis, wild Adonis!'"
Lycabetta yawned and lifted up her hand. Euphrosyne ceased in her
singing.
"There, you have sung enough," Lycabetta said. "I am neither more sleepy
nor more wakeful than I was, and your music wearies me. Have many
knocked at our doors to-night?"
She looked at the girl Glycerium as she spoke, and Glycerium answered
her.
"The young Duke Ferdinand of Etruria."
Lycabetta gave a little laugh of disdain.
"A handsome fool with a foolish hand. How did he carry himself when you
put him by?"
"He was bright with wine," Glycerium answered. "He swore a Greek oath or
two, but he left you this pearl."
Glycerium handed a great, round pearl to Lycabetta, who took it from her
with indifference, weighing it lightly in the hollow of her hand.
"It is rare and fair," she commented, "but I will not wear it. There is
no jewel in the world that is worth what it hides of my whiteness. Who
else?"
Glycerium thought for a moment before she answered,
"Messer Gian Sanminiato."
Lycabetta sneered at the name.
"The court poet who would pay for favors with phrases and runs aside to
rhyme a sonnet every time he wins the kiss of a lip. What did he say?"
"He seemed very downcast, and he sighed like a dromedary," Glycerium
answered. "He charged me to deliver this ode to your loveliness."
She handed a scroll of parchment to Lycabetta, who took it and opened it
contemptuously.
"Oh, ancient gods!" she sighed. "Let me see it. Yes, indeed; I am Venus
and the Graces Three and the Muses Nine--all which I knew before ever he
fumbled for rhymes; and he loves me as Ixion loved the Queen of Heaven.
Well, he had better find a cloud of consolation to-night. Who else?"
"Casimir, the rich Muscovy merchant," Glycerium replied.
Lycabetta gave a shrug.
"He rains gold like Jove, but he smells of civet."
Glycerium ventured a protest.
"His money smells sweet enough," she said. "He flung me this purse on
account."
Lycabetta took no notice of the gold.
"Is that all?" she asked.
Glycerium responded, with a slight air of constraint, "Sigurd Olafson,
the young Varangian captain."
Lycabetta lifted herself on one elbow with a look of interest.
"I would have welcomed him, for he can hug like a bear and his blue eyes
are as bright as the northern star. I could hate the King for swearing
he would come to-night and so forcing me to keep my door shut. Did he
leave me anything?"
"Nothing," Glycerium admitted; "but he lifted me, there in the moonlit
street, to the level of his lips and kissed me."
Lycabetta leaned forward and gave Glycerium a playful box on the ear.
"You little thief," she cried, "to steal the best gift of the bunch. If
I thought he cared for you, child, I would make you very unkissable. Oh,
I wish the King would come!"
Glycerium gave a sigh of admiration.
"He is better than the best of them," she asserted.
Lycabetta nodded her head.
"He is the all-conquering lover, for he never yields an inch of his
heart. If a goddess condescended from Olympus, he would woo her with hot
blood and cold brain. His eyes are torches of desire, but there never is
a tender light in them. If a woman died in his arms, he would leave her
without a sigh. And yet he can speak the speech of love more eloquently
than an angel. You will laugh when I tell you that I would give much to
believe that he loved me."
"He is the King," Glycerium said, simply.
"If he were a shepherd on a hill-side, I should think the same thoughts.
But he is alike with all women. I do not believe the woman is born of
woman who could make gentle his cruelty. He is as pitiless as the
plague, that never spares the fairest."
Glycerium shivered.
"Do not speak of the plague, dear lady. They say some have died of it in
Syracuse."
"Or call it by some pretty name to placate it," Euphrosyne suggested.
"Say that the blessing is abroad."
Glycerium shivered again.
"Oh, how I wish we had never left Naples!"
Lycabetta's face had grown pale and she gasped her words.
"Gods, how I fear it! But it will not creep in here. We stand high from
the city. Our garden is wardered with medicinal herbs, and these odors
and essences defend us. So we need not fear it. And yet, gods, how I
fear it!"
Even as she spoke and shuddered the hangings of the portal parted, and
one of her women entered and saluted reverentially. Lycabetta turned a
little on the couch to look at her.
"What is it, Lysidice?" she asked.
"Zal and Rustum, the King's Moors, wait without," Lysidice answered.
"They come with a charge from the King."
"What charge?" Lycabetta asked, attracted by any interruption in the
monotony of her night.
"They say they have a woman with them," Lysidice answered.
Lycabetta struck herself upon the forehead with her open palm.
"A woman!" she cried, joyously. "Why, I had forgotten. Now I shall have
sport in my loneliness. This is the girl who is to be my plaything.
Admit them and tell them to leave the girl here alone. But bid them wait
within call. I may have need of them. Fly away, love-birds."
Lysidice went out as she had come, to bear Lycabetta's bidding to the
Moorish slaves. The others, fluttering like frightened doves before
Lycabetta's dismissal, disappeared into the farther apartments of the
palace. Lycabetta rose alertly, and, mounting the steps that rose behind
the altar leading to another room, concealed herself behind the dividing
curtains. In a few moments Zal and Rustum came in bearing between them a
gilded litter curtained with crimson silk. Setting this upon the ground,
they drew the curtains and bade Perpetua come forth. As Perpetua emerged
from the litter the brightness of the light after her long journey
through the night dazzled her, and for a moment she put her hands to her
eyes to shield them from the unexpected light. In that moment Zal and
Rustum had lifted up the litter and disappeared through the hangings.
When Perpetua removed her hands she found herself alone in the most
wonderful room she had ever seen or dreamed of. She looked with
astonishment at the gorgeous stuffs and furs, the gold and color, the
glow of fire and gleam of jewels; she breathed in amazement the subtly
perfumed air which seemed at first to make her feel giddy, her who could
stand upon the brink of the grimmest precipice in Sicily and look down
untroubled to its distant floor. Her senses were confused by the lights,
the odors, by the long, strange journey through the night, closely mewed
in a litter borne by black giants, who offered her no harm but answered
her no word. Anxiety for her father had denied anxiety for herself and
still denied her.
"What is this place?" she cried aloud to emptiness. "Is there no one
here?"
Instantly the curtains in front of her divided, revealing Lycabetta in
the pride of her whiteness, almost unclothed in her transparent drapery.
"I am here," she said, and, descending, advanced a little way towards
the girl.
Perpetua stared at the woman who had come upon her so noiselessly, her
white body shining through her thin, glittering robes.
"Where is my father?" she asked.
Lycabetta laughed a little, cruel laugh.
"This is a strange place to come and cry for a father," she answered,
reading with amusement the wonder in the girl's eyes.
Perpetua caught her breath in sudden suspicion.
"Is not my father here?" she said. "They told me he was sick and had
called for me."
Lycabetta shrugged her beautiful shoulders and her gleaming raiment
rippled in little waves of changing color.
"Sick or well, living or dead, you will find no father here, nor mother
neither; but I will be your sister, if you please, sweet simplicity."
She smiled alluringly.
Perpetua looked at her with brave, quiet eyes of dislike.
"Who are you?" she asked, holding her senses well together in the
presence of unsuspected danger.
Lycabetta answered her, languidly amused.
"I am everything and nothing. There are poets who rhyme me the Rose of
the World. There are priests who name me the Strange Woman. I am
Lycabetta."
"Lycabetta!" Perpetua repeated the name almost unconsciously, and
Lycabetta saw that it had no meaning to her ears.
"Has no love-wind ever blown my name to your sky-nest?" she asked. "Has
your royal lover never named my name? For I, too, am one of the King's
darlings."
Perpetua started at the mention of the King's name, and looked around
again at the gorgeous cage.
"The King! the King! Is this the King's house?" she asked, with wider
eyes and clinched fingers.
Lycabetta made her a mocking reverence.
"Every house in Sicily is the King's house, and my poor roof is as loyal
as the best. This is my house and yours, for now you dwell in it at the
King's pleasure."
"Then I will leave it at my own pleasure, instantly." She knew that she
was snared, but she showed no sign of fear.
Lycabetta shook her head and smiled evilly.
"I think you will stay. Every door is guarded, every bolt driven home.
My frightened bird, you cannot escape from this cage."
She knew that the girl was at her mercy and began to find stealthy
delight in the thought. Perpetua faced her boldly, holding her head
high. Pagan and Christian faced each other with bright eyes.
"I do not fear you," Perpetua said, calmly. "You dare not hold me here
against my will. The King himself has no power over a free woman. If you
restrain me, I will call for help, and every honest hand in Syracuse
will be raised to set me free."
Lycabetta laughed again, and her laughter seemed to run over her in
waves of colored fire as her thin garments trembled on her body.
"My gardens are deep and dim and quiet. No sound from here would reach
the world outside. No, not the death-cry nor the shriek of tortured
flesh."
Perpetua gazed at her as she might at some spirit of evil released at
midnight to wreak its will upon the sinful. There was a great horror in
her heart, but there was a great courage in her voice.
"Whoever you are, you cannot frighten me; you dare not keep me here."
Lycabetta thrust her head a little forward, like a snake about to
strike.
"You silly wood savage, you will be very tame presently," she promised,
in a low, hard voice.
"In the name of God I defy you, and I go," Perpetua said, and turned to
go out by the entrance through which she came.
"In the name of the devil you stay where you are," Lycabetta cried, and
clapped her hands.
Instantly the hangings that concealed the entrance parted, and the black
giants entered and stood silently awaiting Lycabetta's orders.
Perpetua moved to them with a gesture of authority.
"Let me pass," she commanded.
The Moors stood motionless. Lycabetta called to her captive:
"Those slaves are as strong and merciless as wild beasts. Whatever I
told them to do to you, they would do to you."
Perpetua moved back towards Lycabetta. Lycabetta gave a sign and the
blacks disappeared behind the curtains.
Perpetua advanced to Lycabetta and looked her squarely in the face.
"Why have I been brought here?" she demanded, sternly, though despair
was tugging at her heartstrings.
Lycabetta leaned back upon her couch and looked at her prisoner
curiously. The Neapolitan recognized that there was beauty of a kind
given to the girl--in her hair, red as the reddest sunset, in her candid
eyes, in the strong, supple body, overbrown from mountain light and
mountain air for Lycabetta's fancy. This was a raw taste of the King's,
she thought, contemptuously; the girl would only be passable in a while,
in a long while. What kind of passion was it that a king could feel for
a country wench, while her gardens were thronged with shapes of
loveliness, while she, Lycabetta, still lived? The passions of the great
are mad fancies, but surely this was the maddest fancy greatness ever
entertained. So she mused while Perpetua watched her. She was stirred
from her meditations when the girl repeated her question.
"Why have I been brought here?"
"You are too idle in the forest," Lycabetta answered, "and so you are
sent here to be apprenticed to my trade."
Perpetua moved a little nearer to her, questioning her with eyes and
speech.
"What is your trade?"
Lycabetta turned to the bronze image of Venus and held out her hands to
it.
"The oldest in the world. We were busy before Babylon was built or Troy
burned. We shall be busy till the world grows gray."
Perpetua repeated her question.
"Speak plainly. What is your trade?"
Lycabetta answered her frankly.
"The trade of love. We sell smiles and kisses and sweet hours, and men
buy them gladly, even at the price of their souls."
"I know you now," Perpetua said, crossing herself. "Though I dwell with
innocence upon the heights, I am not ignorant of the world's depths. I
know you now, and God knows I pity you. Let me go."
Lycabetta shook her head.
"Why should you pity me? You should rather envy me. I am the joy of
life. I grasp and clasp all pleasures, heedless of the passing hour. I
make the most of our little summer, our fleeting sunlight. To drink, to
love, to laugh is the swallow flight of my soul. You shall be as wise as
I am and as happy."
"Have you no fear of God?" Perpetua asked, in sad curiosity. Brought
face to face with sin, her soul felt its pity stronger than its horror.
Lycabetta laughed, and her laughter sounded to Perpetua like the music
of birds in a magic wood.
"I fear nothing but old age. Chilling kisses, the death of desire, the
sands that overwhelm the altar of youth, the dying lights and fading
garlands of life's waning feast--these things I fear, but these things
are not yet for you or for me, and when they come there is always the
hemlock."
"You speak despair," Perpetua insisted, eager with the eagerness of
untainted youth. "I answer with God's mercy that can cleanse and save
you. You are the Strange Woman--but you are a woman, born of a woman,
made to bear the burden of women. Woman to woman, let me go."
"I love you too well to lose you," Lycabetta retorted. "You dream too
much. I shall take great joy in teaching you realities. You do not know
the value of your violet freshness. You will make a sweet priestess of
love."
Perpetua thrust out her hands as if to ward off her enemy, while she
cried:
"You are the Strange Woman! Were you a devil, do you think you could
ever make me like you?"
Lycabetta nodded ominously.
"I will conquer your mad maidenhood, I promise you, and when you sleep
in silk and shine in splendor you will thank me devoutly. Already your
cheek flushes gratitude."
The girl's cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were unchanged in defiance
as she answered:
"Your words sting me like blows, and my face flames at them. But you
are not so wise as you think, if you hope to tempt me or terrify me."
Lycabetta watched her, catlike.
"Torture may change your mind, as shame shall change your body."
Perpetua crossed herself again.
"Nothing that you can do to me will change my soul. That I will carry
with me pure to heaven."
"You may long for death ere I have done with you," Lycabetta whispered,
sourly. She would have said more, but her speech was interrupted by the
sudden entrance of Lysidice through the curtained portal. Lycabetta
questioned her, frowning.
"Why do you come here?"
Lysidice answered, hurriedly: