The Flower of Death
We were now in the Palace, and the place was besieged. About its walls
(and they were thick indeed, or this tale had not been written) a
howling mob surged through the day and still unwearied made hideous the
night.
The people of the Walled City, maddened by their priests, cried out for
blood, and it added an unfailing interest to the cry that we who heard
it knew right well for whose blood they were thus loudly clamoring.
But the Queen was deaf to the tumult, nor did she seem to heed the fact
that as the days wore on, the multitude, grown bolder, now cursed the
name of her who shielded thus the enemies of the gods.
Agno was not idle. Abroad the wolves leaped at the gates; the royal
archers shot them down by hundreds, and in turn were slain. Grim death
walked thus a hundred paces off, and we within, moved by the will of her
who reigned supreme, lived softly and spoke not of that which chiefly
filled our thoughts. That it was the beginning of the end, we knew, but
one forbade the hint of danger, and we obeyed.
Meanwhile the serene, luxurious life of the Palace flowed quietly on,
like some broad, placid stream that speeds not nor frets, for all the
thunder of the waterfall at hand.
Lestrade, grown strangely moody, and Astolba, with white, hushed face,
sat with me, guests in the Queen’s banquet-hall; but I alone drank from
the royal cup, and on me alone did the eyes of Lah rest with the look
that was at once both promise and fulfilment.
I am a prudent man, but a man has need of more than prudence to guard
against a foe like this. For the Queen was to me all woman in those
days, and the spell of her beauty and her new-born gentleness was on me.
Also the uncertainty of these golden hours, and the sense of
ever-present danger, went to my head like wine. I set it down in penance
for the sin of my unfaithfulness. I forgot the garnered store of wealth,
whose secret I had held; I forgot my friend; I forgot the maid that I
had sworn to save. And it was in a mood like this, that Astolba found
me, the morning of the fifth day of the siege of the Palace.
I was on my way to meet the Queen, and my whole soul was in my errand,
so that I looked with the less kindness and the more impatience on the
hand that stayed me. It was a small hand and white, but I am not
Lestrade, and I had little thought for its beauty. None the less I am a
man, and its weakness should have held me as its fairness might not do.
Yet it was with more haste than gentleness that I asked Astolba’s
errand. Had I been less amorously engaged with my own purpose, I think
the terror in the upturned face would have touched me to the quick; as
it was, I set her story down more to the vain fears of any maid in such
a case, than to the score of her with whom the tale chiefly dealt—for it
was of the Queen that Astolba spoke; the Queen, who, as I have said, was
all meekness and sweet humility with me. Yet this is what Astolba told
me, and little did I think that I should so soon see reason in her
speech:—
“It was night at about the eleventh hour,” she began; “I lay shivering
upon my couch, and I could not sleep. You remember that I had asked
Lah’s permission to go from the banquet, and as I passed, you had turned
kindly to me, and bade me take courage, while even as you spoke the
hideous cries from without came faintly to my ears. Perhaps your notice
stirred the hatred of the Queen, for indeed of late she does hate me. At
least she looked at me, and her look pierced me through and through. The
thought of it kept me awake. I was cold with fear though the night was
warm. I shall die with terror in this evil place. Oh, if you be a man,
help me to escape or kill me quickly! But I tell you I will not longer
live this life of horror.”
So Astolba cried, and I, with a coldness that I can never enough regret,
asked her to speak plainly and to the point; what else of evil had the
Queen done? Or had she compassed all wickedness in a single look?
But the maid, like a frightened child, clung to me still, and
half-weeping went on with her story.
“It was late, as I have told you, and yet I could not sleep. But at
length I was so worn with brooding on the dreadful past, and the black
future, that I think I must have dropped into a light slumber. And in my
dreams a still more awful horror took hold on me, and I would have cried
out but a hand was placed over my mouth, and I awoke. The Queen stood by
my side.” Astolba covered her face with her hands. “I shall never forget
the anger, the hatred, and the scorn of her look, yet when she spoke,
her voice was low, and calm with a cruel quiet.
“‘Miserable white-faced slave,’ she said. ‘Have you wondered why I have
so far spared you? Did you think because you have escaped the serpent’s
pit, that you could hope to escape me? It would have been all too easy
to have thrown you to those dogs without the gates, who would have made
short work of your slender prettiness.’
“Then her passion seemed to break out of the bonds in which she held it.
She took hold of my arm—see the mark of her fingers on the flesh. She
dragged me half-fainting from the couch, and I swayed to and fro in her
iron grasp.
“‘Look,’ she said, ‘look at me well, and ask yourself if your white face
can hold a charm for him, now that he has gazed upon my beauty? Yet will
I make sure. You have heard many a secret of the Palace; yet you have
not heard of the flower of death. But fear not, for of that also you
shall know. You shall breathe its perfume, when you think not, and you
shall die. Little by little your blood shall dry in your veins, and your
fair, white skin shall shrivel and hang loose. Your eyes shall lose
their lustre. You shall have pity, perchance, but love shall pass you
by. Day by day you will wither. You will seek for death, and death will
come all too slowly. Yet in the end, that also shall come, and with it
the first and last mercy that shall be rendered to you from the hands of
Lah, the Queen—’
“Then she left me—”
“And you awoke,” said I, half-smiling, as one comforting a child. “For
surely, Astolba, you cannot think that such a thing as this could by any
chance be true. The flower of death! Are you not already a little
ashamed of all this nonsense? As for the Queen, has she not shielded us
all at the risk of her own life? And while I am here, and Lestrade, what
do you fear? Death could come to you only after it had come first to us.
And in truth, it shall go hard if we do not soon find some way to save
you and ourselves. But we must trust the Queen. Have patience a little—”
and here I stooped, and kissed as a brother might, the soft cheek, now
so pale and wan. “Meanwhile dream no more dreams.”
And so I left her, with drooping head like a broken flower—left her and
sought the woman whose strong hand still held the threads of the tangled
web that men call fate.