Once more the spring months had come, and the fields grew green and the
trees put forth their leaves. Four years had passed since Daniel had
died in Ecbatana, leaving his legacy of wisdom to Zoroaster; and almost
a year had gone by since Zoroaster had returned to the court at
Stakhar. The time had sped very swiftly, except for Nehushta, whose life
was heavy with a great weariness and her eyes hollow with suffering
sleeplessness. She was not always the same, saving that she was always
unhappy. There were days when she was resigned to her lot and merely
hoped that it would soon be over; and she wondered how it was that she
did not slip out of the gardens at evening, and go and sink her care and
her great sorrow in the cool waves of the Araxes, far down below. But
then the thought came over her that she must see his face once more; and
it was always once more, so that the last time never came. And again,
there were days when she hoped all things, madly, indiscriminately,
without sequence--the king might die, Zoroaster might again love her,
all might be well. But the mood of a hope that is senseless is very
fleet, and despair follows close in its footsteps. Nehushta grew each
time more sad, as she grew more certain that for her there was no hope.
At least it seemed as though Atossa had given up loving Zoroaster and
thought no more of him than of another. Indeed Atossa seemed more
anxious to please the king than formerly, in proportion as Darius seemed
less easily pleased by her. But over all, Zoroaster's supremacy was felt
in the palace, and though he was never known to be angry with any one,
he was more feared than the fierce king himself, for his calm clear eyes
were hard to meet and the words that fell from his lips had in them the
ring of fate. Moreover, he was known and his power was dreaded from one
end of the kingdom to the other, and his name was like the king's
signet, which sealed all things, and there was no appeal.
Upon a fair morning in the spring-time, when the sun was shining outside
upon the roses still wet with dew, the king sat in an inner hall, half
lying upon a broad couch, on which the warm rays of the sun fell through
an upper window. He was watching with absorbed attention the tricks of
an Indian juggler who had lately arrived at the court, and whom he had
summoned that morning to amuse a leisure hour, for when the king was not
actively engaged in business, or fighting, he loved some amusement,
being of a restless temper and mind that needed constant occupation.
Atossa sat near him, upon a carved chair, turning over and over in her
fingers a string of pearls as she gazed at the performances of the
juggler. Two spearmen, clad in blue and scarlet and gold, stood
motionless by the door, and Darius and Atossa watched the sleight-handed
Indian alone.
The man tossed a knife into the air and caught it, then two, then three,
increasing the number in rapid succession till a score of bright blades
made a shining circle in the air as he quickly tossed them up and passed
them from hand to hand and tossed them again. Darius laughed at the
man's skill, and looked up at the queen.
"You remind me of that fellow," said Darius.
"The king is very gracious to his handmaiden," answered Atossa, smiling,
"I think I am less skilful, but more fair."
"You are fairer, it is true," returned the king; "but as for your skill,
I know not. You seem always to be playing with knives, but you never
wound yourself any more than he does."
The queen looked keenly at Darius, but her lips smiled gently. The
thought crossed her mind that the king perhaps knew something of what
had passed between her and Nehushta nearly a year before, with regard to
a certain Indian dagger. The knives the juggler tossed in the air
reminded her of it by their shape. But the king laughed gaily and she
answered without hesitation:
"I would it were true, for then I could be not only the king's wife, but
the king's juggler!"
"I meant not so," laughed Darius. "The two would hardly suit one
another."
"And yet, I need more skill than this Indian fellow, to be the king's
wife," answered the queen slowly.
"Said I not so?"
"Nay--but you meant not so," replied Atossa, looking down.
"What I say, I mean," he returned. "You need all the fairness of your
face to conceal the evil in your heart, as this man needs all his skill
in handling those sharp knives, that would cut off his fingers if,
unawares, he touched the wrong edge of them."
"I conceal nothing," said the queen, with a light laugh. "The king has
a thousand eyes--how should I conceal anything from him?"
"That is a question which I constantly ask myself," answered Darius.
"And yet, I often think I know your thoughts less well than those of the
black girl who fans you when you are hot, and whose attention is
honestly concentrated upon keeping the flies from your face--or of
yonder stolid spearmen at the door, who watch us, and honestly wish they
were kings and queens, to lie all day upon a silken couch, and watch the
tricks of a paid conjurer."
As Darius spoke, the guards he glanced at turned suddenly and faced each
other, standing on each side of the doorway, and brought their heavy
spears to the ground with a ringing noise. In a moment the tall, thin
figure of Zoroaster, in his white robes, appeared between them. He
stopped respectfully at the threshold, waiting for the king to notice
him, for, in spite of his power and high rank, he chose to maintain
rigidly the formalities of the court.
Darius made a sign and the juggler caught his whirling knives, one after
the other, and thrust them into his bag, and withdrew.
"Hail, Zoroaster!" said the king. "Come near and sit beside me, and tell
me your business."
Zoroaster came forward and made a salutation, but he remained standing,
as though the matter on which he came were urgent.
"Hail, king, and live for ever!" he said. "I am a bearer of evil news. A
rider has come speeding from Ecbatana, escaped from the confusion. Media
has revolted, and the king's guards are besieged within the fortress of
Ecbatana."
Darius sat upright upon the edge of his couch; the knotted veins upon
his temples swelled with sudden anger and his brow flushed darkly.
"Doubtless it is Phraortes who has set himself up as king," he said.
Then, suddenly and fiercely, he turned upon Atossa. "Now is your hour
come," he cried in uncontrollable anger. "You shall surely die this day,
for you have done this, and the powers of evil shall have your soul,
which is of them, and of none other."
Atossa, for the first time in her whole life, turned pale to the lips
and trembled, for she already seemed to taste death in the air. But even
then, her boldness did not desert her, and she rose to her feet with a
stateliness and a calmness that almost awed the king's anger to silence.
"Slay me if thou wilt," she said in a low voice, but firmly. "I am
innocent of this deed." The great lie fell from her lips with a calmness
that a martyr might have envied. But Zoroaster stepped between her and
the king. As he passed her, his clear, calm eyes met hers for a moment.
He read in her face the fear of death, and he pitied her.
"Let the king hear me," he said. "It is not Phraortes who has headed the
revolt, and it is told me that Phraortes has fled from Ecbatana. Let the
king send forth his armies and subdue the rebels, and let this woman go;
for the fear of death is upon her and it may be that she has not sinned
in this matter. And if she have indeed sinned, will the king make war
upon women, or redden his hands with the blood of his own wife?"
"You speak as a priest--I feel as a man," returned the king, savagely.
"This woman has deserved death many times--let her die. So shall we be
free of her."
"It is not lawful to do this thing," returned Zoroaster coldly, and his
glance rested upon the angry face of Darius, as he spoke, and seemed to
subdue his furious wrath. "The king cannot know whether she have
deserved death or not, until he have the rebels of Ecbatana before him.
Moreover, the blood of a woman is a perpetual shame to the man who has
shed it."
The king seemed to waver, and Atossa, who watched him keenly, understood
that the moment had come in which she might herself make an appeal to
him. In the suddenness of the situation she had time to ask herself why
Zoroaster, whom she had so bitterly injured, should intercede for her.
She could not understand his nobility of soul, and she feared some trap,
into which she should fall by and by. But, meanwhile, she chose to
appeal to the king's mercy herself, lest she should feel that she owed
her preservation wholly to Zoroaster. It was a bold thought, worthy of a
woman of her strength, in a moment of supreme danger.
With a quick movement she tore the tiara from her head and let it fall
upon the floor. The mass of her silken hair fell all about her like a
vesture of gold, and she threw herself at the king's feet, embracing his
knees with a passionate gesture of appeal. Her face was very pale, and
the beauty of it seemed to grow by the unnatural lack of colour, while
her soft blue eyes looked up into the king's face with such an
expression of imploring supplication that he was fain to acknowledge to
himself that she moved his heart, for she had never looked so fair
before. She spoke no word, but held his knees, and as she gazed, two
beautiful great tears rolled slowly from under her eyelids, and trembled
upon her pale, soft cheeks, and her warm, quick breath went up to his
face.
Darius tried to push her from him, but she would not go, and he was
forced to look at her, and his anger melted, and he smiled somewhat
grimly, though his brows were bent.
"Go to," he said, "I jested. It is impossible for a man to slay anything
so beautiful as you."
Atossa's colour returned to her cheeks, and bending down, she kissed the
king's knees and his hands, and her golden hair fell all about her and
upon the king's lap. But Darius rose impatiently, and left her kneeling
by the couch. He was already angry with himself for having forgiven her,
and he hated his own weakness bitterly.
"I will myself go hence at once with the guards, and I will take half
the force from the fortress of Stakhar and go to Shushan, and thence,
with the army that is there, I will be in Ecbatana in a few days. And I
will utterly crush out these rebels who speak lies and do not
acknowledge me. Remain here, Zoroaster, and govern this province until I
return in triumph."
Darius glanced once more at Atossa, who lay by the couch, half upon it
and half upon the floor, seemingly dazed at what had occurred; and then
he turned upon his heel and strode out of the room between the two
spearmen of the guard, who raised their weapons as he passed, and
followed him with a quick, rhythmical tread down the broad corridor
outside.
Zoroaster was left alone with the queen.
As soon as Darius was gone, Atossa rose to her feet, and with all
possible calmness proceeded to rearrange her disordered hair and to
place her head-dress upon her head. Zoroaster stood and watched her; her
hand trembled a little, but she seemed otherwise unmoved by what had
occurred. She glanced up at him from under her eyelids as she stood with
her head bent down and her hands raised, to arrange her hair.
"Why did you beg the king to spare my life?" she asked. "You, of all
men, must wish me dead."
"I do not wish you dead," he answered coldly. "You have yet much evil to
do in the world, but it will not be all evil. Neither did I need to
intercede for you. Your time is not come, and though the king's hand
were raised to strike you, it would not fall upon you, for you are fated
to accomplish many things."
"Do you not hate me, Zoroaster?"
It was one of the queen's chief characteristics that she never attempted
concealment when it could be of no use, and in such cases affected an
almost brutal frankness. She almost laughed as she asked the
question--it seemed so foolish, and yet she asked it.
"I do not hate you," answered the priest. "You are beneath hatred."
"And I presume you are far above it?" she said very scornfully, and eyed
him in silence for a moment. "You are a poor creature," she pursued,
presently. "I heartily despise you. You suffered yourself to be deceived
by a mere trick; you let the woman you loved go from you without an
effort to keep her. You might have been a queen's lover, and you
despised her. And now, when you could have the woman who did you a
mortal injury be led forth to death before your eyes, you interceded for
her and saved her life. You are a fool. I despise you."
"I rejoice that you do," returned Zoroaster coldly. "I would not have
your admiration, if I might be paid for receiving it with the whole
world and the wisdom thereof."
"Not even if you might have for your wife the woman you loved in your
poor, insipid way--but you loved her nevertheless? She is pale and
sorrowful, poor creature; she haunts the gardens like the shadow of
death; she wearies the king with her wan face. She is eating her heart
out for you--the king took her from you, you could take her from him
to-morrow, if you pleased. The greater your folly, because you do not.
As for her, her foolishness is such that she would follow you to the
ends of the earth--poor girl! she little knows what a pale, wretched,
sapless thing you have in your breast for a heart."
But Zoroaster gazed calmly at the queen in quiet scorn at her scoffing.
"Think you that the sun is obscured, because you can draw yonder curtain
before your window and keep out his rays?" he asked. "Think you that the
children of light feel pain because the children of darkness say in
their ignorance that there is no light?"
"You speak in parables--having nothing plain to say," returned the
queen, thrusting a golden pin through her hair at the back and through
the folds of her linen tiara. But she felt Zoroaster's eyes upon her,
and looking up, she was fascinated by the strange light in them. She
strove to look away from him, but could not. Suddenly her heart sank
within her. She had heard of Indian charmers and of Chaldean
necromancers and wise men, who could perform wonders and slay their
enemies with a glance. She struggled to take her eyes from his, but it
was of no use. The subtle power of the universal agent had got hold upon
her, and she was riveted to the spot so long as he kept his eyes upon
her. He spoke again, and his voice seemed to come to her with a
deafening metallic force, as though it vibrated to her very brain.
"You may scoff at me; shield yourself from me, if you can," said
Zoroaster. "Lift one hand, if you are able--make one step from me, if
you have the strength. You cannot; you are altogether in my power. If I
would, I could kill you as you stand, and there would be no mark of
violence upon you, that a man should be able to say you were slain. You
boast of your strength and power. See, you follow the motion of my hand,
as a dog would. See, you kneel before me, and prostrate yourself in the
dust at my feet, at my bidding. Lie there, and think well whether you
are able to scoff any more. You kneeled to the king of your own will;
you kneel to me at mine, and though you had the strength of a hundred
men, you must kneel there till I bid you rise."
The queen was wholly under the influence of the terrible power
Zoroaster possessed. She was no more able to resist his will than a
drowning man can resist the swift torrent that bears him down to his
death. She lay at the priest's feet, helpless and nerveless. He gazed at
her for a moment as she crouched before him.
"Rise," he said, "go your way, and remember me."
Relieved from the force of the subtle influence he projected, Atossa
sprang to her feet and staggered back a few paces, till she fell upon
the couch.
"What manner of man art thou?" she said, staring wildly before her, as
though recovering from some heavy blow that had stunned her.
But she saw Zoroaster's white robes disappear through the door, even
while the words were on her lips, and she sank back in stupefaction upon
the cushions of the couch.
Meanwhile the trumpets sounded in the courts of the palace and the
guards were marshalled out at the king's command. Messengers mounted and
rode furiously up the valley to the fortress, to warn the troops there
to make ready for the march; and before the sun reached the meridian,
Darius was on horseback, in his armour, at the foot of the great
staircase. The blazing noonday light shone upon his polished helmet and
on the golden wings that stood out on either side of it, and the hot
rays were sent flashing back from his gilded harness, and from the broad
scales of his horse's armour.
The slaves of the palace stood in long ranks before the columns of the
portico and upon the broad stairs on each side, and Zoroaster stood on
the lowest step, attended by a score of his priests, to receive the
king's last instructions.
"I go forth, and in two months I will return in triumph," said Darius.
"Meanwhile keep thou the government in thy hand, and let not the laws be
relaxed because the king is not here. Let the sacrifice be performed
daily in the temple, and let all things proceed as though I myself were
present. I will not that petty strifes arise because I am away. There
shall be peace--peace--peace forever throughout my kingdom, though I
shed much blood to obtain it. And all the people who are evildoers and
makers of strife and sedition shall tremble at the name of Darius, the
king of kings, and of Zoroaster, the high priest of the All-Wise. In
peace I leave you, to cause peace whither I go; and in peace I will come
again to you. Farewell, Zoroaster, truest friend and wisest counsellor;
in thy keeping I leave all things. Take thou the signet and bear it
wisely till I come."
Zoroaster received the royal ring and bowed a low obeisance. Then Darius
pressed his knees to his horse's sides and the noble steed sprang
forward upon the straight, broad road, like an arrow from a bow. The
mounted guards grasped their spears and gathered their bridles in their
hands and followed swiftly, four and four, shoulder to shoulder, and
knee to knee, their bronze cuirasses and polished helmets blazing in the
noonday sun and dashing as they galloped on; and in a moment there was
nothing seen of the royal guard but a tossing wave of light far up the
valley; and the white dust, that had risen, as they plunged forward,
settled slowly in the still, hot air upon the roses and shrubs that hung
over the enclosure of the garden at the foot of the broad staircase.
Zoroaster gazed for a moment on the track of the swift warriors; then
went up the steps, followed by his priests, and entered the palace.
Atossa and Nehushta had watched the departure of the king from their
upper windows, at the opposite ends of the building, from behind the
gilded lattices. Atossa had recovered somewhat from the astonishment and
fear that had taken possession of her when she had found herself under
Zoroaster's strange influence, and as she saw Darius ride away, while
Zoroaster remained standing upon the steps, her courage rose. She
resolved that nothing should induce her again to expose herself to the
chief priest's unearthly power, and she laughed to herself as she
thought that she might yet destroy him, and free herself from him for
ever. She wondered how she could ever have given a thought of love to
such a man, and she summoned her black slave, and sent him upon his last
errand, by which he was to obtain his freedom.
But Nehushta gazed sadly after the galloping guards, and her eye strove
to distinguish the king's crest before the others, till all was mingled
in the distance, in an indiscriminate reflection of moving light, and
then lost to view altogether in the rising dust. Whether she loved him
truly, or loved him not, he had been true and kind to her, and had
rested his dark head upon her shoulder that very morning before he went,
and had told her that, of all living women, he loved her best. But she
had felt a quick sting of pain in her heart, because she knew that she
would give her life to lie for one short hour on Zoroaster's breast and
sob out all her sorrow and die.