Zoroaster had sat for nearly an hour, his eyes fixed on the blue sky,
his thoughts wandering in contemplation of things greater and higher
than those of earth, when he was roused by the measured tread of armed
men marching in a distant room. In an instant he stood up, his helmet on
his head,--the whole force of military habit bringing him back suddenly
to the world of reality. In a moment the same heavy curtain, from under
which Atossa had issued two hours before, was drawn aside, and a double
file of spearmen came out upon the balcony, ranging themselves to right
and left with well-drilled precision. A moment more, and the king
himself appeared, walking alone, in his armour and winged helmet, his
left hand upon the hilt of his sword, his splendid mantle hanging to the
ground behind his shoulders. As he came between the soldiers, he walked
more slowly, and his dark, deep-set eyes seemed to scan the bearing and
accoutrements of each separate spearman. It was rarely indeed, in those
early days of his power, that he laid aside his breastplate for the
tunic, or his helmet for the tiara and royal crown. In his whole air and
gait the character of the soldier dominated, and the look of the
conqueror was already in his face.
Zoroaster strode forward a few paces, and stood still as the king caught
sight of him, preparing to prostrate himself, according to the ancient
custom. But Darius checked him by a gesture; turning half round, he
dismissed the guard, who filed back through the door as they had come,
and the curtain fell behind them.
"I like not these elaborate customs," said the king. "A simple
salutation, the hand to the lips and forehead--it is quite enough. A man
might win a battle if he had all the time that it takes him to fall down
at my feet and rise up again, twenty times in a day."
As the king's speech seemed to require no answer, Zoroaster stood
silently waiting for his orders. Darius walked to the balustrade and
stood in the full glare of the sun for a moment, looking out. Then he
came back again.
"The town seems to be quiet this morning," he said. "How long did the
queen tarry here talking with thee, Zoroaster?"
"The queen talked with her servant for the space of half an hour,"
answered Zoroaster, without hesitation, though he was astonished at the
suddenness and directness of the question.
"She is gone to see thy princess," continued the king.
"The queen told her servant it was yet too early to see Nehushta,"
remarked the warrior.
"She is gone to see her, nevertheless," asserted Darius, in a tone of
conviction. "Now, it stands in reason that when the most beautiful woman
in the world has been told that another woman is come who is more
beautiful than she, she will not lose a moment in seeing her." He eyed
Zoroaster curiously for a moment, and his thick black beard did not
altogether hide the smile on his face. "Come," he added, "we shall find
the two together."
The king led the way and Zoroaster gravely followed. They passed down the
staircase by which the queen had gone, and entering the low passage, came
to the small door which she had bolted behind her with so much difficulty.
The king pushed his weight against it, but it was still fastened.
"Thou art stronger than I, Zoroaster," he said, with a deep laugh. "Open
the door."
The young warrior pushed heavily against the planks, and felt that one
of them yielded. Then, standing back, he dealt a heavy blow on the spot
with his clenched fist; a second, and the plank broke in. He put his arm
through the aperture, and easily slipped the bolt back, and the door
flew open. The blood streamed from his hand.
"That is well done," said Darius as he entered. His quick eye saw
something white upon the stone bench in the dusky corner by the door. He
stooped and picked it up quickly. It was the sealed scroll Atossa had
left there when she needed both her hands to draw the bolt. Darius took
it to one of the narrow windows, looked at it curiously and broke the
seal. Zoroaster stood near and wiped the blood from his bruised knuckle.
The contents of the scroll were short. It was addressed to one
Phraortes, of Ecbatana in Media, and contained the information that the
Great King had returned in triumph from Babylon, having subdued the
rebels and slain many thousands in two battles. Furthermore, that the
said Phraortes should give instant information of the queen's affairs,
and do nothing in regard to them until further intimation arrived.
The king stood a moment in deep thought. Then he walked slowly down the
corridor, holding the scroll loose in his hand. Just at that instant
Atossa emerged from the dark staircase, and as she found herself face to
face with Darius, she uttered an exclamation and stood still.
"This is very convenient place for our interview," said Darius quietly.
"No one can hear us. Therefore speak the truth at once." He held up the
scroll to her eyes.
Atossa's ready wit did not desert her, nor did she change colour, though
she knew her life was in the balance with her words. She laughed lightly
as she spoke:
"I came down the stairs this morning----"
"To see the most beautiful woman in the world," interrupted Darius,
raising his voice. "You have seen her. I am glad of it. Why did you bolt
the door of the passage?"
"Because I thought it unfitting that the passage to the women's
apartments should be left open when so many in the palace know the way,"
she answered readily enough.
"Where were you taking this letter when you left it at the door?" asked
the king, beginning to doubt whether there were anything wrong at all.
"I was about to send it to Ecbatana," answered Atossa with perfect
simplicity.
"Who is this Phraortes?"
"He is the governor of the lands my father gave me for my own in Media.
I wrote him to tell him of the Great King's victory, and that he should
send me information concerning my affairs, and do nothing further until
he hears from me."
"Why not?"
"Because I thought it possible that the Great King would spend the
summer in Ecbatana, and that I should therefore be there myself to give
my own directions. I forgot the letter because I had to take both hands
to draw the bolt, and I was coming back to get it. Nehushta the princess
is with me--she is now upon the staircase."
The king looked thoughtfully at his wife's beautiful face.
"You have evidently spoken the truth," he said slowly. "But it is not
always easy to understand what your truth signifies. I often think it
would be much wiser to strangle you. Say you that Nehushta is near? Call
her, then. Why does she tarry?"
In truth Nehushta had trembled as she crouched upon the stairs, not
knowing whether to descend or to fly up the steps again. As she heard
the queen pronounce her name, however, she judged it prudent to seem to
have been out of earshot, and with quick, soft steps, she went up till
she came to the lighted part, and there she waited.
"Let the Great King go himself and find her," said Atossa proudly, "if
he doubts me any further." She stood aside to let him pass. But Darius
beckoned to Zoroaster to go. He had remained standing at some distance,
an unwilling witness to the royal altercation that had taken place
before him; but as he passed the queen, she gave him a glance of
imploring sadness, as though beseeching his sympathy in what she was
made to suffer. He ran quickly up the steps in spite of the darkness,
and found Nehushta waiting by the window higher up. She started as he
appeared, for he was the person she least expected. But he took her
quickly in his arms, and kissed her passionately twice.
"Come quickly, my beloved," he whispered. "The king waits below."
"I heard his voice--and then I fled," she whispered hurriedly; and they
began to descend again. "I hate her--I knew I should," she whispered, as
she leaned upon his arm. So they emerged into the corridor, and met
Darius waiting for them. The queen was nowhere to be seen, and the door
at the farther extremity of the narrow way was wide open.
The king was as calm as though nothing had occurred; he still held the
open letter in his hand as Nehushta entered the passage, and bowed
herself before him. He took her hand for a moment, and then dropped it;
but his eyes flashed suddenly and his arm trembled at her touch.
"Thou hadst almost lost thy way," he said. "The palace is large and the
passages are many and devious. Come now, I will lead thee to the
gardens. There thou canst find friends among the queen's noble women,
and amusements of many kinds. Let thy heart delight in the beauty of
Shushan, and if there is anything that thou desirest, ask and I will
give it thee."
Nehushta bent her head in thanks. The only thing she desired was to be
alone for half an hour with Zoroaster; and that seemed difficult.
"Thy servant desireth what is pleasant in thy sight," she answered. And
so they left the passage by the open door, and the king himself
conducted Nehushta to the entrance of the garden, and bade the
slave-woman who met them to lead her to the pavilion where the ladies of
the palace spent the day in the warm summer weather. Zoroaster knew that
whatever liberty his singular position allowed him in the quarter of the
building where the king himself lived, he was not privileged to enter
that place which was set apart for the noble ladies. Darius hated to be
always surrounded by guards and slaves, and the terraces and staircases
of his dwelling were generally totally deserted,--only small detachments
of spearmen guarding jealously the main entrances. But the remainder of
the palace swarmed with the gorgeously dressed retinue of the court,
with slaves of every colour and degree, from the mute smooth-faced
Ethiopian to the accomplished Hebrew scribes of the great nobles; from
the black and scantily-clad fan-girls to the dainty Greek tirewomen of
the queen's toilet, who loitered near the carved marble fountain at the
entrance to the gardens; and in the outer courts, detachments of the
horsemen of the guard rubbed their weapons, or reddened their broad
leather bridles and trappings with red chalk, or groomed the horse of
some lately arrived officer or messenger, or hung about and basked in
the sun, with no clothing but their short-sleeved linen tunics and
breeches, discussing the affairs of the nation with the certainty of
decision peculiar to all soldiers, high and low. There was only room for
a squadron of horse in the palace; but though they were few, they were
the picked men of the guard, and every one of them felt himself as
justly entitled to an opinion concerning the position of the new king,
as though he were at least a general.
But Darius allowed no gossiping slaves nor wrangling soldiers in his own
dwelling. There all was silent and apparently deserted, and thither he
led Zoroaster again. The young warrior was astonished at the way in
which the king moved about unattended, as carelessly as though he were a
mere soldier himself; he was not yet accustomed to the restless
independence of character, to the unceasing activity and perfect
personal fearlessness of the young Darius. It was hard to realise that
this simple, hard-handed, outspoken man was the Great King, and occupied
the throne of the magnificent and stately Cyrus, who never stirred
abroad without the full state of the court about him; or that he reigned
in the stead of the luxurious Cambyses, who feared to tread upon
uncovered marble, or to expose himself to the draught of a staircase;
and who, after seven years of caring for his body, had destroyed himself
in a fit of impotent passion. Darius succeeded to the throne of Persia
as a lion coming into the place of jackals, as an eagle into a nest of
crows and carrion birds--untiring, violent, relentless and brave.
"Knowest thou one Phraortes, of Ecbatana?" the king asked suddenly when
he was alone with Zoroaster.
"I know him," answered the prince. "A man rich, and powerful, full of
vanity as a peacock, and of wiles like a serpent. Not noble. He is the
son of a fish-vendor, grown rich by selling salted sturgeons in the
market-place. He is also the overseer of the queen's farmlands in Media,
and of the Great King's horse-breeding stables."
"Go forth and bring him to me," said the king shortly. Without a word,
Zoroaster made a brief salute and turned upon his heel to go. But it was
as though a man had thrust him through with a knife. The king gazed
after him in admiration of his magnificent obedience.
"Stay!" he called out. "How long wilt thou be gone?"
Zoroaster turned sharply round in military fashion, as he answered:
"It is a hundred and fifty farsangs[3] to Ecbatana. By the king's relays
I can ride there in six days, and I can bring back Phraortes in six days
more--if he die not of the riding," he added, with a grim smile.
[Footnote 3: Between five and six hundred English miles. South
American postilions at the present day ride six hundred miles a
week for a bare living.]
"Is he old, or young? Fat, or meagre?" asked the king, laughing.
"He is a man of forty years, neither thin nor fat--a good horseman in
his way, but not as we are."
"Bind him to his horse if he falls off from weariness. And tell him he
is summoned to appear before me. Tell him the business brooks no delay.
Auramazda be with thee and bring thee help. Go with speed."
Again Zoroaster turned and in a moment he was gone. He had sworn to be
the king's faithful servant, and he would keep his oath, cost what it
might, though it was bitterness to him to leave Nehushta without a word.
He bethought him as he hastily put on light garments for the journey,
that he might send her a letter, and he wrote a few words upon a piece
of parchment, and folded it together. As he passed by the entrance of
the garden on his way to the stables, he looked about for one of
Nehushta's slaves; but seeing none, he beckoned to one of the Greek
tirewomen, and giving her a piece of gold, bade her take the little
scroll to Nehushta, the Hebrew princess, who was in the gardens. Then he
went quickly on, and mounting the best horse in the king's stables,
galloped at a break-neck pace down the steep incline. In five minutes he
had crossed the bridge, and was speeding over the straight, dusty road
toward Nineveh. In a quarter of an hour, a person watching him from the
palace would have seen his flying figure disappearing as in a tiny speck
of dust far out upon the broad, green plain.
But the Greek slave-woman stood with Zoroaster's letter in her hand and
held the gold piece he had given her in her mouth, debating what she
should do. She was one of the queen's women, as it chanced, and she
immediately reflected that she might turn the writing to some better
account than by delivering it to Nehushta, whom she had seen for a
moment that morning as she passed, and whose dark Hebrew face displeased
the frivolous Greek, for some hidden reason. She thought of giving the
scroll to the queen, but then she reflected that she did not know what
it contained. The words were written hastily and in the Chaldean
character. Their import might displease her mistress. The woman was not
a newcomer, and she knew Zoroaster's face well enough from former times;
she knew also, or suspected, that the queen secretly loved him, and she
argued from the fact of Zoroaster, who was dressed for a journey,
sending so hastily a word to Nehushta, that he loved the Hebrew
princess. Therefore, if the letter were a mere love greeting, with no
name written in it, the queen might apply it to herself, and she would
be pleased; whereas, if it were in any way clear that the writing was
intended for Nehushta, the queen would certainly be glad that it should
never be delivered. The result of this cunning argument was that the
Greek woman thrust the letter into her bosom, and the gold piece into
her girdle; and went to seek an opportunity of seeing the queen alone.
That day, towards evening, Atossa sat in an inner chamber before her
great mirror; the table was covered with jade boxes, silver combs, bowls
of golden hair-pins, little ivory instruments, and all the appurtenances
of her toilet. Two or three magnificent jewels lay among the many
articles of use, gleaming in the reflected light of the two tall lamps
that stood on bronze stands beside her chair. She was fully attired and
had dismissed her women; but she lingered a moment, poring over the
little parchment scroll her chief hairdresser had slipped into her hand
when they were alone for a moment. Only a black fan-girl stood a few
paces behind her, and resting the stem of the long palm against one foot
thrust forward, swung the broad round leaf quickly from side to side at
arm's length, sending a constant stream of fresh air upon her royal
mistress, just below the level of the lamps which burned steadily above.
The queen turned the small letter again in her hand, and smiled to
herself as she looked into the great burnished sheet of silver that
surmounted the table. With some difficulty she had mastered the
contents, for she knew enough of Hebrew and of the Chaldean character to
comprehend the few simple words.
"I go hence for twelve days upon the king's business. My beloved, my
soul is with thy soul and my heart with thy heart. As the dove that
goeth forth in the morning and returneth in the evening to his mate, so
I will return soon to thee."
Atossa knew well enough that the letter had been intended for Nehushta.
The woman had whispered that Zoroaster had given it to her, and
Zoroaster would never have written those words to herself; or, writing
anything, would not have written in the Hebrew language.
But as the queen read, her heart rose up in wrath against the Persian
prince and against the woman he loved. When she had talked with him that
morning, she had felt her old yearning affection rising again in her
breast. She had wondered at herself, being accustomed to think that she
was beyond all feeling for man, and the impression she had received from
her half-hour's talk with him was so strong, that she had foolishly
delayed sending her letter to Phraortes, in order to see the woman
Zoroaster admired, and had, in her absence of mind, forgotten the
scroll upon the seat in the corridor, and had brought herself into such
desperate danger through the discovery of the missive, that she hardly
yet felt safe. The king had dismissed her peremptorily from his presence
while he waited for Nehushta, and she had not seen him during the rest
of the day. As for Zoroaster, she had soon heard from her women that he
had taken the road towards Nineveh before noon, alone and almost
unarmed, mounted upon one of the fleetest horses in Persia. She had not
a doubt that Darius had despatched him at once to Ecbatana to meet
Phraortes, or at least to inquire into the state of affairs in the city.
She knew that no one could outride Zoroaster, and that there was nothing
to be done but to await the issue. It was not possible to send a word of
warning to her agent--he must inevitably take his chance, and if his
conduct attracted suspicion, he would, in all probability, be at once
put to death. She believed that, even in that event, she could easily
clear herself; but she resolved, if possible, to warn him as soon as he
reached Shushan, or even to induce the king to be absent from the palace
for a few days at the time when Phraortes might be expected. There was
plenty of time--at least eleven days.
Meanwhile, a desperate struggle was beginning within her, and the letter
her woman had brought her hastened the conclusion to which her thoughts
were rapidly tending.
She felt keenly the fact that Zoroaster, who had been so cold to her
advances in former days, had preferred before her a Hebrew woman, and
was now actually so deeply in love with Nehushta, that he could not
leave the palace for a few days without writing her a word of love--he,
who had never loved any one! She fiercely hated this dark woman, who was
preferred before her by the man she secretly loved, and whom the king
had brutally declared to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She
longed for her destruction as she had never longed for anything in her
life. Her whole soul rose in bitter resentment; not only did Zoroaster
love this black-eyed, dark-browed child of captivity, but the king, who
had always maintained that Atossa was unequalled in the world, even when
he coldly informed her that he would never trust her, now dared to say
before Zoroaster, almost before Nehushta herself, that the princess was
the more beautiful of the two. The one man wounded her in her vanity,
the other in her heart.
It would not be possible at present to be revenged upon the king. There
was little chance of eluding his sleepless vigilance, or of leading him
into any rash act of self-destruction. Besides, she knew him too well
not to understand that he was the only man alive who could save Persia
from further revolutions, and keep the throne against all comers. She
loved power and the splendour of her royal existence, perhaps more than
she loved Zoroaster. The idea of another change in the monarchy was not
to be thought of, now that Darius had subdued Babylon. She had indeed a
half-concerted plan with Phraortes to seize the power in Media in case
the king were defeated in Babylonia, and the scroll she had so
imprudently forgotten that very morning was merely an order to lay
aside all such plans for the present, since the king had returned in
triumph.
As far as her conscience was concerned, Atossa would as soon have
overthrown and murdered the king to gratify the personal anger she felt
against him at the present moment, as she would have wrecked the
universe to possess a jewel she fancied. There existed in her mind no
idea of proportion between the gratification of her passions and the
means she might employ thereto; provided one gratification did not
interfere with another which she always saw beyond. Nothing startled her
on account of its mere magnitude; no plan was rejected by her merely
because it implied ruin to a countless number of human beings who were
useless to her. She coldly calculated the amount of satisfaction she
could at any time obtain for her wishes and desires, so as not to
prejudice the gratification of all the possible passions she might
hereafter experience.
As for injuring Zoroaster, she would not have thought of it. She loved
him in a way peculiar to herself, but it was love, nevertheless,--and
she had no idea of wreaking her disappointment upon the object on which
she had set her heart. As a logical consequence, she determined to turn
all her anger against Nehushta, and she pictured to herself the
delicious pleasure of torturing the young princess's jealousy to
desperation. To convince Nehushta that Zoroaster was deceiving her, and
really loved herself, the queen; to force Zoroaster into some position
where he must either silently let Nehushta believe that he was attached
to Atossa, or, as an alternative, betray the king's secrets by speaking
the truth; to let Nehushta's vanity be flattered by the king's
admiration,--nay, even to force her into a marriage with Darius, and
then by suffering her again to fall into her first love for Zoroaster,
bring her to a public disgrace by suddenly unmasking her to the king--to
accomplish these things surely and quickly, reserving for herself the
final delight of scoffing at her worsted rival--all this seemed to
Atossa to constitute a plan at once worthy of her profound and scheming
intelligence, and most sweetly satisfactory to her injured vanity and
rejected love.
It would be hard for her to see Nehushta married to the king, and
occupying the position of chief favourite even for a time. But the
triumph would be the sweeter when Nehushta was finally overthrown, and
meanwhile there would be much daily delight in tormenting the princess's
jealousy. Chance, or rather the cunning of her Greek tirewoman, had
thrown a weapon in her way which could easily be turned into an
instrument of torture, and as she sat before her mirror, she twisted and
untwisted the little bit of parchment, and smiled to herself, a sweet
bright smile--and leaned her head back to the pleasant breeze of the
fan.